Mszana Dolna – a pre-war summer resort. The last holidays of the pupils of the ‘Krakow Korczak’.

“When you walked through the streets at that time, you could smell the forest and resin. These scents, apart from the mountains and the river, were excellent advertising. So in the summer we had lots of holidaymakers from all over Poland, especially from Warsaw” wrote Aleksander Kalczyński in his memoirs about pre-war Mszana Dolna.

At that time, Mszana was probably even more of a well-known holiday resort than it is today. Holidaymakers flocked here in large numbers, including from abroad. For some of them, these experiences became an unexpected salvation in the future. For others, this beautifully situated town at the foot of the mountains turned out to be a false promise of safety. Many spent their last holidays here, at the foot of Lubogoszcz, Szczebel and Luboń. This included a group of children from the Jewish Orphanage in Krakow, accompanied by their caretakers, who did not abandon their pupils in the hour of need and, like Korczak and many others, went with them to their deaths. Their last photograph captured the August 1939 summer camp in Mszana Dolna.

Our event took place on 8 August 2025 and was a journey through both the carefree world of idyllic holidays and the darkness of occupation and complicated human destinies. Before and after the war, Mszana Dolna was visited by many famous people, such as Stanisław Pagaczewski, Lech Ordoń, Father Zaleski-Isakowicz, and Wisława Szymborska, accompanied by a group of professors from the Jagiellonian University.

There were also those who, thanks to their holiday experiences and contacts, survived the Holocaust. Steve, the only survivor of the large Isralel family from Krakow, who as a young boy helped the local baker deliver bread around the area and learned how to groom horses, which saved his life in the Tarnów ghetto, and Nusia Rosenstock, who was saved by a regular visitor to the ‘Stach’ villa in Obłazy, Krakow professor Mikołaj Kaszyczka.

During the meeting, the charms of Mszana Dolna were also presented, based on both Jarosław Zoń's collection of pre-war postcards and current photographs from our Foundation.

At the end, as always, we shared Friday challah and lit candles in memory of the former, pre-war residents of our town, and then, over summer lemonade, we talked at length about what the presentation had moved us.

Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the Programme of the National Centre for Culture EtnoPolska. Edition 2025