Freedom Climbers in Wroclaw
Wojciech KUCHARSKI
From 10 December 2024, the Zajezdnia History Centre will host an extraordinary exhibition on the communities of Himalayan climbers linked to Wroclaw. It includes not only the stage design, unique artefacts and expedition photographs but also audio recordings of high-mountain exploration, such as communications between base camp and climbing teams. The exhibition will be open until 1 June 2025.
.This year marks the 100th anniversary of the memorable third expedition of British mountaineer and Himalayan pioneer George Mallory. It remains uncertain if he reached the summit of Mount Everest, but his influence inspired high mountain expeditions worldwide, including climbers in Poland.
In 1936, the Polish Himalayan Committee was established. As a result of its activities, in 1939 a Polish expedition conquered the virgin Nanda Devi – the sixth highest peak ever climbed at the time.
But the Second World War changed everything, particularly in Europe. In 1945, the old continent, devastated and marked by cemeteries and bomb craters, began to emerge from its nightmare. The world’s leaders at that time made decisions that moved borders, people and ideas. For the Poles, it was a gradual process, but by 1945, the country was already vastly altered from what it had been when the Nanda Devi expedition departed before the war. Poland’s shift westwards and the great migration of peoples led historians and sociologists to describe the inhabitants of post-war Wroclaw, Lower Silesia and the western and northern Polish lands as a post-migration society – more mobile, open to new ideas, in the process of growing in (i.e. putting down roots).
This might explain why several Himalayan mountaineers crossed paths in Wroclaw: borderlanders and expatriates Bogdan Jankowski from Grodno (born in 1938) and Wanda Rutkiewicz from Samogitia (born in 1943), as well as others from across Poland, whose families – or they themselves – were looking for a new life in the city, such as Adam Uznański from Kraków (born 1914), Kazimierz Głazek from Warsaw (born in 1939) and Janusz Fereński from Gorlice (born in 1942). After the war, Wojciech Kurtyka, Marek Kęsicki and Janusz Kuliś were born in 1947 and 1950 respectively, in the so-called Recovered Territories. Aleksander Lwow (born in 1953), who is still involved with the Wroclaw mountaineering community, came to the city when he was three years old, while Krzysztof Wielicki (born in 1950 in Wielkopolska), one of the most outstanding Polish Himalayan climbers of all time, chose Wroclaw as his place of study. Interestingly, Andrzej Zawada’s first choice of university was also in Wroclaw. But he only stayed here for two years, later moving to Warsaw.
Somehow, by the force of an inexplicable phenomenon, most of them were brought together by Wroclaw University of Technology. When talking about the beginnings of the Wroclaw High Mountain Club, Bogdan Jankowski always mentioned two professors and rectors of the Wroclaw University of Technology: Tadeusz Zipser, originally from Lviv, and Andrzej Wiszniewski, originally from Warsaw, who saw the great potential of the Sokole Mountains as a training ground for future climbing champions.
Polish Himalayan mountaineers joined the exploration of the world’s highest mountains relatively late. By 1966, when Jerzy Warteresiewicz (an electrical engineer), wrote his article Himalayas: With or Without Us? for ‘Taternik’ magazine, all 14 eight-thousanders had already been climbed. When Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal reached the summit of Annapurna, the first eight-thousander ever to be conquered, on 3 June 1950, Krzysztof Wielicki was 6 months and 2 days old. Bogdan Jankowski and Janusz Fereński were in primary school. And when Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay stood on the top of the world’s highest mountain on 29 May 1953, our Polish champions’ passion for mountains was yet to ignite. Even Andrzej Zawada, a mountaineering graduate of two years prior, found himself at a life-turning point, unsure of which direction to pursue among his interests in aviation, climbing and geophysics.
The Freedom Climbers exhibition offers a glimpse into the mystery of their Himalayan adventure: how they discovered the mountains, why they embarked on such perilous journeys, what drove them on their quest, and perhaps a little about who they were and why their expeditions are so important to Wroclaw’s identity.
The exhibition was created by journalists Dariusz Kortko and Marcin Pietraszewski, authors of highly popular biographies of renowned Polish Himalayan climbers Jerzy Kukuczka and Krzysztof Wielicki. The journalists have succeeded not only in describing the environment of the Wroclaw mountaineers and the most important expeditions (Broad Peak Middle 1975 and Manaslu 1984) but also in placing their story in the context of the time – Communist Poland, a state dependent on the Soviet Union, constantly short of resources, with authorities controlling and monitoring its citizens and exploiting the successes of its athletes for propaganda purposes.
The exhibition is based on three types of artefacts: photographs, original memorabilia and audio recordings from expeditions in the Himalayas and Karakorum. The photographs come primarily from the archive of the chronicler of Polish Himalayan mountaineering Bogdan Jankowski, who, due to his profession and interests, was also responsible for communication during expeditions to the highest mountains from the mid-1970s. Thanks to him, visitors can hear original recordings of the sounds of the caravan, Kathmandu and climbing actions. Among the original displays, the most intriguing ones come from his collections, as well as those from Krzysztof Wielicki (such as the ‘golden ice axe’), the ‘Sztygarka’ Museum in Dabrowa Gornicza (Krzysztof Wielicki’s expedition gear) and the Museum of Sport and Tourism in Warsaw (Wanda Rutkiewicz’s belongings and climbing gear).
The name of the exhibition, Freedom Climbers, was inspired by a book by Bernadette Macdonald, who originally used it as the title of her publication about Polish Himalayan climbers. She also wrote the introduction to the exhibition. The term ‘freedom’ is pivotal to comprehending Polish history. Reinhold Messner once said that ‘Polish climbers were the best in the world. It takes skill, determination, and ability, but their national history is what propelled them this far.’
.Simultaneously, the word ‘freedom’ resonates deeply at the Zajezdnia History Centre (the 1980 strike’s origin), intertwining strongly with ‘solidarity,’ another crucial Polish historical term. These two words lead us to reflect on the responsibility for others that all climbers experience and reaffirm before embarking on their journey with simple commands:
Can I go?
You can.
I’m going.
Go.
