THE BEGINNINGS OF "ORNAK"
ADAM SOKOŁOWSKI DIARIES
1902
Foundations and holes. Maniek and I are running around the foundations calling out “hey, hey” to each other through the holes. Surrounding us there are only meadows covered in juniper bushes, with a deep forest nearby.
1903
The big house, “Ornak”, is already standing, still not inhabited, but work on the wooden interiors is in full swing. In September, father got a doctor (Dr Gaik) to see me and in the western porch (because in the rooms it was not yet possible to do anything like this), he removed a boil on my right temple. It had formed as a result of an infection after falling off a fence in front of the house, in ‘Polanka’ near Kościelisko. We stayed there in the summer with Mum, Staszek and Tolek, waiting for the work on “Ornak” to be completed.
1904
Our first summer season in “Orank”. We moved into the small house. The big house was still empty. I remember the fresh wooden interiors of the rooms downstairs, their fairy-like colouring in the sun and the wonderful smell of the wooden planks that had still not been varnished.
The contract on the purchase of the land where “Ornak” was to be built was signed in 1901.
1905
“Ornak’s” first guests (of course only in the summer months). Mrs Witwicka and her two daughters, more-or-less the same age as me, and her younger son. She was very elegant, pleasant, and came from the Polish Borderlands. We played with the girls until a wooden bowling ball hit the little one on the head. Fortunately, there was no serious damage. However, from then on a ‘nanny’ was always with us when we were playing together. She was employed especially for this purpose.
1906
Mrs Witwicka, her children and nanny were again in the big house. We played together like last year, went for walks through the junipers and down to the river. One of the rooms upstairs was occupied by Mrs Syrewicz together with her son and his friend. They were 19-20 years old. They often invited Maniek to join them in whatever they were doing, which of course made quite an impression on him. However, he was brave enough to let his brotherly love come before his ambitions. When one day they took Maniek to the forest leaving me behind and hid in the bushes, I started running after them, crying out, ‘Maniek! Where are you?’. After a moment he answered: ‘Here’, risking the disapproval of his companions. This, however, did not spoil our relationship and my company did not bother them at all. They told us all sorts of stories, all of them supposedly true, from the 1905 Revolution in Warsaw; of course, they saw everything ‘with their own eyes’. The stories told by Syrewicz’s friend were especially interesting. We were very impressed when he claimed that he was not afraid of the Cossacks because he knew how to deal with them.
1907
As far as I remember, the big house stood empty throughout the summer. We would run through all the rooms, playing hide-and-seek. Mum didn’t like this as we would bring in a lot of mud and also damaged the furniture. This year, our parents organised a trip to Czarny Staw near Kościelec. Apart from us, the Pisarskis, Walczaks from ‘Polanka’and a few other people took part in the excursion. Because everybody was walking too slowly for me, I went on ahead, following other tourists to Zmarzły Staw, after which I turned back towards Czarny Staw, where I met my worried parents and the rest of the company, who in turn were thrilled at my independence. I returned absolutely taken with the mountainous landscape, which was all very new to me.
1908
Mr and Mrs Kraft from Łódź took the ground floor in the big house. Mr Kraft, neither a German nor a Pole, was a rich pharmacist. He had a son Maniek’s age and a grown-up daughter. Her fiancé, a young and elegant German from Łódź, would come to visit. They kept two horses in a stable that had been built specially for them next to the barn. They also had two coachmen. They would ride these horses nearly every day, visiting the surrounding neighbourhood. They were anything but pleasant. The way they behaved towards us and to the Poles living here, as well as the behaviour of the coachmen towards our servants, whom they wouldn’t leave in peace, made things difficult for all of us. Mrs Kiernicka, who stayed upstairs with her son, often saved the day. Her son, who was the same age as Maniek, was a very pleasant and cheerful companion during our walks and games (he was killed on the Russian front right at the beginning of World War I).
During this summer season, one of the rooms upstairs, next to Mrs Kiernicka’s, was occupied by Mr and Mrs Nahlik and their two children. They were forever quarreling with Mrs Kiernicka.
1909
As far as I remember, there were no paying guests in “Ornak” throughout the summer.
1910
The Wojciechowskis from Cracow (the family of a well-known solicitor) took the downstairs rooms. They had three children, two sons and a daughter. The eldest was the same age as Maniek. He did not join us in our games, whereas their daughter, Wisia, who was the same age as Staszek, and the youngest, Tadek (Tolek’s age), played with us a lot. Mrs Zierhoffer, a widow, who lived in Bukowina near Czerniowce with her son Gustaw (Maniek’s age) and daughter Maria (who was the same age as me), took the upstairs rooms. Maniek and Gustaw went climbing together. They even had an accident on Żelazne Wrota which, luckily, had a happy ending, while we, the younger ones, played nearer home, making a lot of noise at the same time. Our parents and Mrs Wojciechowska, who had come to Zakopane for some peace and quiet, were not too please. The weather was also quite changeable (the tragedy on Mały Jaworowy), so the holidays on the whole weren’t too good.
1911
This year “Ornak” was again empty downstairs, whereas upstairs, one room was occupied by Mrs Zierhoffer and children, and the two remaining ones by the Woleńskis and their son and servant. They were the owners of a tenement house in Lvov, to which we had moved last year. On the whole, I felt a lack of the right company. I did quite a lot of hiking through the forested parts of the Tatras, and also went for walks with my younger siblings and Mania Zierhoffer.
1912
Mrs Valerie, an actress from Warsaw, and her two children took all the downstairs rooms. In the spring, the kitchen upstairs had been completed, and so we were finally able to move into the big house in September and took over the whole first floor. This was a big relief after the lack of space in the small house. This year it was rented by Prof. Kallenbach’s family from Cracow. The weather was generally much better than last year, so Maniek and I did quite a lot of mountain-climbing. Once we even took Father with us for an excursion lasting a couple of days. This, by some miracle, didn’t end tragically.
1913
“Ornak” finally had more permanent paying guests. The downstairs was taken by Ludwik Solski, the director of the Słowacki Theatre in Cracow, for his wife, Mrs Irena Solska, and daughter Haneczka. He furnished it lavishly. His staff consisted of a governess, who was in charge of everything, two servants, a cook, and a coachman, who was responsible for their horse and buggy which were always at the family’s disposal. Ludwik Solski himself was not often in Zakopane. From time to time he would come for a few days, not so much to be with his wife as to be with his daughter. We lived upstairs, whereas the small house was taken over by Mr and Mrs Gawlas from Cracow, together with their son and daughter. They were the owners of a breakfast café in the city. They were very nice people, both the parents and the children. I spent whole days with the younger Gawlases, going for walks together, talking and hunting sparrows and squirrels with Floberts, but without really doing the creatures any harm. Unfortunately, this summer the weather was absolutely terrible. However, making the most of a few nice days at the end of August, Maniek, Gustaw Zierhoffer, Prof. Kozikowski and I climbed Kriváň on the northern side from the Niefcyrka Valley. Our excursion was a great success. The night spent at the top of Kriváň, looking out at the Tatra Mountains among a sea of mist, was an unforgettable experience.
1914
In comparison with last year, we thought this summer would be beautiful. In “Ornak” everything took place according to the usual routine. Mr and Mrs Solski resided downstairs, or rather Irena S. and daughter together with their guests from the artistic world, who would come to stay for a few days at a time. We were in two of the upstairs rooms, while one, facing east, was taken by Mr and Mrs Woleński with their son Franek and servant. Mrs Syrewicz and son came to stay in the small house for six weeks. During those last few years she had aged greatly, while he had grown into quite a serious young man. At the same time, he gave the impression of being bored and worn-out by city life in Warsaw. He was devoted to his mother with whom he spent whole days at a time, often going for drives in fiacres. Maniek and I quite often went hiking into the mountains, with me reading a lot of books on Polish history and patriotic themes. Having the opportunity to do this was great because the head of the self-educational group in Lvov, of which I was a member, had brought this organisation’s whole library to Zakopane. To this day I don’t know why, but he left all the books in our house.
So, it would seem that everything was fine if it hadn’t been for the political situation which, from the assassination in Sarajevo at the end of June, started to develop at a terrific rate in the direction of war. It is difficult to describe today the feelings of our people at that time. The older generation was worried and felt helpless in the face of developing events, whereas those who were much younger and even the very young were quite overwhelmed with joy at the thought of a conflict between the empires that had partitioned us. This conflict, as was forecast during the meetings of our group, was unavoidable and had to lead to our nation regaining its much desired state of independence.
Within weeks, the development of events quickly led to the outbreak of war between Austria and Serbia, followed practically immediately by the declaration of war between Austria and Germany against Russia and the Western powers.
In Zakopane, people immediately started to leave for their own homes. Within a few days the town seemed to become very empty and so looked quite different. At the same time, though, there was a lot going on. Riflemen, for the first time in Polish uniforms, appeared and were greeted with great enthusiasm.
At the beginning of August, Maniek left for Cracow in order to sign up at the headquarters of the Polish Rifle Squads of which he had been a member for a few years. He kept his word. When still a small boy and when asked his name, he would always say: “Marian Sokołowski, a Polish soldier”. I, on the other hand, as a sixteen-year-old, joined the boy scouts under the command of A. Małkowski. They were later to be in reserve for the Rifle Squads which were then part of the Polish Legions or were drafted into the Austrian army. Of course, apart from us, everybody else left “Ornak”. We decided to remain on the spot, having decided to wait out the war in Zakopane.
However, the situation concerning the war started to change rapidly. Fearing that Lvov might be affected, Father went there for a few days so as to see to what was necessary in the School of Forests and to ask somebody to look after our flat. In the given conditions, there was no way that our whole family could go back there. Mum especially felt safer in Zakpane, where she was among her own folk, the Walczaks and Krzysiaks, than would have been the case if she were in Lvov, among people whom on the whole she did not know. Father returned after a few days, but very tired and depressed. He told us that he had climbed through a carriage window of one the last evacuation trains, a day before Russian troops entered Lvov. He brought what was most necessary for the winter and some underwear.
This was the first time we were going to stay in Zakopane for the winter and go to school there. A description of the further fate of “Ornak” during World War I I’m going to leave to Staszek. The following year, after the Russians were forced out of Lvov. I went back to the city and moved in with Father. I completed my secondary-school education and, in 1917, was drafted into the Austrian army.
