News

Today, at the Museum’s Opole seat, took place the meeting entitled "Krasne, Starobielsk, Kazakhstan... Memory of the wartime apocalypse". Its guest was Maria Matlachowska, a paediatrician and long-time activist of the Opole branch of the Katyń Family Association.

The audience was welcomed by Dr. Violetta Rezler-Wasielewska, the Museum director, who then introduced the guest of the meeting and the persons who were in charge of the discussion: Dr. Renata Kobylarz-Buła, deputy director of the Museum, and Joanna Matlachowska-Pala, daughter of the heroine, a physician by profession and a poet by passion.

And it was she who began the main part of the meeting with a recitation of her poem entitled By Mistake. This was the starting point for reflections on the importance of family history in Ms. Joanna's poetic work. The conversation then moved smoothly to the topic of the fate of Maria Matlachowska's parents, i.e. Julia and Józef Libur, and their youth in Kalina Mała and Olkusz. There was some talk about the professional path of Józef, who was a forester, and the story of his military service, which began in 1928 at the Artillery Reserve Cadet School in Volodymyr-Volynskyi.

Another of the issues covered during the meeting was the early life of Maria Matlachowska, born in 1935, and the outbreak of war that interrupted her happy childhood. Lieutenant Józef Libur was called up when the war began and any news from him ceased for several months. It was only in a telegram from March 1940 when he reported that he had been taken into Soviet captivity. Meanwhile, Maria, along with her mother and the rest of her siblings, was deported to Kazakhstan. Reminiscences of this period, as well as the difficult return from exile in 1946, were still extremely vivid in the story of the guest of the meeting.

The next part of the talk was devoted to Maria's life path. Important stages of her life were the choice of medical profession, settlement in Opole in 1960, and her activity in the "Katyń Family" Association as it was not earlier than 55 years after the last news about her father when the family’s worst fears were confirmed: Józef Libura had died in April 1940 in Kharkov at the hands of the NKVD and was laid to rest in the death pits in Pyatichatki near Kharkov. The awareness that knowledge of the Katyń massacre is still incomplete, and that the facts are sometimes undermined by the current Russian authorities, provides a stimulus for action. Hence our heroine's cooperation with the Museum, including the organization of exhibitions and the implementation of educational and commemorative projects.

The meeting concluded with a discussion. After its end, the meeting’s attendees took part in a curatorial tour of the "I love You, see you..." exhibition, which presented, among other things, the fate of Julia and Józef Libur.