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As part of our cooperation with the Pan Tadeusz Museum, a branch of the Ossoliński National Institute, on 12 March, we opened the exhibition entitled ‘There where we are standing, the Sun shines. The School of Younger Female Volunteers (1942–1948)’.

The exhibition takes a closer look at the fate of the female students of the institution, which establishment in 1942 by General Władysław Anders was an unprecedented event, as the army officially took care of children and young people. As a first step, the underage victims of Soviet totalitarianism evacuated from the north of the USSR were provided with medical aid and basic needs, including shelter and food. However, it was not the end, and the army also, in no time, took care of the education of children, often orphans and half-orphans, who were given the chance to completely change their lives. Both boys (thanks to male juniors' schools) and girls were beneficiaries of this aid, and it is they - the students of the School of Younger Female Volunteers (SMO – Szkoła Młodszych Ochotniczek) - the exhibition is devoted to.

The opening was attended by many visitors. Dr. Joanna Hytrek-Hryciuk, curator of the exhibition, showed the visitors around it, before there was a meeting with the witnesses to history - female graduates of the SMO, who willingly and with zest talked about their school experiences. After an introduction by the Museum Director Dr. Violetta Rezler-Wasielewska, the floor was taken by representatives of the co-organisers, Danuta Szeliga and Małgorzata Kamecka, followed by Alicja Szkuta from London - daughter of the former headmistress of the School and president of the society of the former student, educators and friends of the School of Younger Female Volunteers, and former students Waleria Luro (who called from London) and Zofia Szczęsnowicz-Sołowij.

Out of the many memorable words we heard during the opening, we will quote one that is encompassing the greatest - in the opinion of the author of these words, Zofia Szczęsnowicz-Sołowij (a well-known architect who was based in Wrocław after the war) - value of the School of Younger Female Volunteers: ‘What the school instilled in me, what I owe to the school, is that relationships between people should be positive, we should seek understanding [...] and our good life depends on it’.

The exhibition can be viewed every day during the opening hours of the Opole seat of the Museum at 3 Minorytów Street, i.e. from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday.

You are welcome to visit it!