THE SCHOOL BANNER

    In Dziennik Polski ("Polish Journal"), issued on October 30th 2004, we can read an article about our school. Miss Wanda Trojan tells the story of a discovered school banner...

Mystery of the banner

    Who unstitched the crown? Who embroidered the inscription ”Labour Party”? The students of Dąbie high school are going to investigate this. The school headteacher, Iwona Janek, can say that her cadency starts under the lucky star. After years of searching, the school banner from 1935 has finally been found. Will the run of good luck continue and will the story of the school banner be known? Will the school find a sponsor to help in preservation of the found relic?

Encouragement to good

    At the end of the nineteenth century Dąbie was a village with 750 people and over 100 houses. In 1911 the village was attached to Cracow. The first school appeared here earlier, in 1892 – it was a one-class People's school. It was located in a wooden building, in the same place where the present Gimnazjum nr 7 is situated, at Jachowicza street. The school was evolving. In 1886 it was changed into a two-class school and in 1913 a new building started to be built. In 1925 it was a seven-class institution and in 1931 it began to expand. On 5th May, 1935, the consecration of the school's banner was the culmination of this work. Four pages in the school chronicle were devoted to the school banner. It was founded by the students' school shop. The money was also raised by the dwellers of Dąbie. Finally, the company ”Kopaczyński” was commissioned to make the banner. The banner, made from silk brocade, on one side had a white eagle against the background of red colour and the inscription: ”Głowacki's school Kraków 1935” and the reverse showed the Mother of God with a line of a famous Polish prayer underneath. The ceremony of consecration was very solemn. It was on the school backyard, in front of the altar. The school headteacher said that ”the banner was a guide for thoughts and spirit that pours the hope for victory even in hearts that are weak. This is a shield against the bullets of evil and encouragement to good”

White pages

    The record in the chronicle is both the first and the last trace of the banner. It is strange that there is no information about school history between the years 1937 and 1945. It is understood that there was no record during the years of war but it cannot be explained why the chronicle ends a couple of years before the war, in 1937, and then there are only white pages. In 1937 the school got a new banner. When 100 school anniversary aproached, the organizers decided to try to find the precious relic from the past. The attempts were unsuccessful until one collector from Warsaw, Tomasz Zawistowski, went to an antiquities marketplace. On one of the stalls he saw a banner with an interesting eagle. Searching the Internet, he found the information about a school in Cracow looking for its old banner. He handed the banner over to the school headmaster.

There is going to be an investigation

    The banner has returned to its place. It is waiting for conservation and restoration of the original inscription. Nevertheless, the school society is still engrossed in the case of the banner's mysterious disappearance and the change of its owner.