Anwijabowadzki - tajemniczy fotograf ruin Warszawy
Anwijabowadzki - a mysterious photographer of the ruins of Warsaw

Summary/Abstract: The paper offers a brief information about a set of 300 photographs (13 x 18 cm) showing ruined Warsaw at the beginning of World War II, showing bombed streets, demolished churches, tenement houses and public buildings (state institutions, schools, hospitals, railway stations), as well as graves of deceased soldiers and civilians. The photographs had been hidden throughout the war and German occupation, since 1988 constituting the property of The Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation - The Institute of National Memory. On the back of the prints (often provided with a precise date) one can see an ink stamp with a strangely sounding name of the photographer. The whole mystery was solved after the photographs had been broadcast during a television programme „Świadkowie” (Witnesses), as the result of which the photographer’s relatives identified themselves. The photographs appear to have been taken by a retired employee of the Warsaw gasworks, Antoni Wiktor Jarema Bończa-Snawadzki (1892-1940?). The name on the stamp was in fact his artistic pseudonym, derived from the first two letters of the name and coat-of-arms (An-Wi-Ja-Bo) and the last six letters of his real family name (-wadzki). Anwijabowadzki took his photographs between the capitulation of Warsaw (September 28th, 1939) and January 1940 when he was arrested by the Germans and most likely executed. Snawadzki must have taken more photographs, since 38 of his pictures arc kept at the Historic Museum of Warsaw. However, nothing is known about negatives of all the photographs. Digitalized and reedited material

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