Objects

From the photograph pasted into the carte nationale d'identité (French identity card) of Gina (Eugenia Regina), Pinkuś, an elderly, grey-haired lady with beautiful, penetrating eyes, looks at us. The document was issued on 17 October 1960 in Paris, and we find there the exact date of birth of Regina Eugenia, who was born on 22 April 1895 in Konin. After the Second World War and her return to Paris from Great Britain, where the Szwarcs spent the Second World War (they returned very soon, already in 1945), Gina Szwarc continued her literary activity. She wrote mainly in Polish. The best known of her Polish texts written during and after the war is the novel about St Jadwiga "Witraże. Kartki z kroniki śląskiej" [Stained glass. Cards from the Silesian Chronicle] with woodcuts by Stefan Mrożewski, first published by the Polish Bookshop in Paris in 1946.

Renata Piątkowska