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Background history
The portrait of a man dressed in the uniform of an officer of the Polish Army of the Second Republic of Poland, with the rank of a lieutenant – the left profile in a ¾ framework, a long face, dark eyes looking ahead into the open space, the hair also dark with a clearly-marked parting, short, neatly trimmed, slightly turning grey over the temples, a straight nose, a small mustache, a small mouth. The oil painting on canvas resting inside a decorative, golden frame, which is not the first original one – this comes from the time after the war, when it was decided to add more brilliance to the portrait and to put it up in a place where it could be made distinct in the home of its owner and – at the same time – the portrayed soldier – Mieczysław Eugeniusz Szybkowski. His son, Bogusław Szybkowski, a well-known publisher, collector and philanthropist of Opole, who, in 2012, presented the picture to the Museum, cannot recall when it took place: for him the paining had been hanging in the family living-room ever since he remembers, as if evidently accentuating the significance of his father’s captivity and the war in the family’s history. This is why the decision to give over the portrait to enrich the Museum’s collection was so difficult to make and engaged all the family members. Along with the painting, the collection of museum items expanded also by other equally precious mementos, photographs documenting POWs’ life in captivity, a cigarette case made in the camp, as well as one more portrait drawn in crayons, which also presents Mieczysław Szybkowski (1 December 1912 – 2 August 1979). He was an officer of the reserve, a soldier of Krakow Army, who – in the years of World War II – was interned, together with several thousand other Polish officers, in Oflag VII A Murnau (Bavaria). He worked in the camp hospital there and even gained the qualifications of a feldsher (medical assistant). He also performed the important function of Man of Confidence of the Sick. Moreover, he engaged in the POWs’ educational and cultural activities. From many stories his father told him about that time, the son remembers, among others, the facts that his father participated in the theatrical life in the oflag and completed a theoretical driving license course. Apart from that he recollected the permanent state of malnutrition, which resulted in that in their home the proverbial bread crumb could not be wasted or thrown away. Similarly, a remnant of the camp regime manifested itself in his father’s walking around the flat with his hands clasped on his back. The archives of the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War in Łambinowice-Opole enrich the information on Mieczysław Szybkowski only a little, though, just giving his POW number: 16849. The oil portrait features the signature of its maker: “E. Lis”, in the bottom left corner. A journalist of the editorial staff of the Opole supplement to the daily Gazeta Wyborcza – Anita Dmitruczuk – contributed to deciphering the name. While reporting on the fact of the giving over the POW’s mementos to our Museum, she informed of Boguław Szybkowski’s failed attempts to find the painter of his late father’s portrait. The correspondence which started between Bogusław Szybkowski and one of the readers permitted to identify the portrait maker: who, with very high probability, was Edward Lis (1915-2011), a POW interned in Oflag VII A Murnau, who while staying in captivity discovered in himself artistic skills which he mastered by portraying, among others, his companions in the camp. When, in 1945, the camp was liberated by the American Army, both men joined the Second Polish Corps in Italy and then reached Great Britain, where they were finally demobilized. We do not know whether they maintained contacts with each other afterwards. Eventually, in 1951, Edward Lis left for the United States, where he continued his artistic passion. Mieczysław Szybkowski, on the other hand, returned to Poland already in the middle of 1947, to re-join his wife, having taken with himself the portrait and other mementos which we are now able to publicly display.
Prepared by: Violetta Rezler-Wasielewska
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