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Works are underway on a sizeable collection of correspondence that was handed over to the Museum in mid-February this year. We are talking about 214 postcards and 113 letter sheets received by Janina Konarska (the so-called 'war mother') from 54 Polish soldiers detained in the Wehrmacht prisoner-of-war camps during World War II.

Janina Konarska (1912–2001) worked in the Piotrków Trybunalski branch of the Polish Red Cross during the Second World War. She was engaged in a help to prisoners-of-war by sending them parcels and letters. Prior to that, during the so-called September Campaign, she took care of wounded Polish Army soldiers and civilians treated at the Municipal Hospital (Holy Trinity) in Piotrków Trybunalski.

The collection is dominated by correspondence sent out by prisoners-of-war from Stalags IV D Torgau, IV G Oschatz and XI A Altengrabow. On the postcards and letter sheets one can usually find thanks for the help received, information about the POWs and queries about the fate of relatives who stayed in the motherland.

Among the prisoners who wrote to Janina Konarska are, among others, the persons whose stories and achievements have been already well knowned. There are, for example, the prisoners-of-war at Stalag XI A Altengrabow: Ryszard Pok, author of the music to the works "Spider Web of Events" or "Lullaby", written in captivity, or Franciszek Dończyk, who in captivity acted as secretary to Leon Hoffmann (Man of Confidence of the Polish prisoners-of-war in Stalag Altengrabow), who after the war (in 1959) published his memoirs from captivity.