Joanna Lusek

The poster is a combination of graphic elements and a text layer that is informative. Its development in the 1940s was influenced by the socio-political situation of the country, which was rebuilding itself from war damage. In the following decades, it was a narrative in line with the ideological foundations of the Eastern Bloc countries. Over time, the poster became a tool of conscious propaganda by the authorities. Social posters, including those dealing with multifaceted issues of public health, broke away from the monotonous narrative. In the collection of the History Department of the Upper Silesian Museum in Bytom, there are over 5.5 thousand posters of various content and caesura. A small part of them, 80 objects, analyzed in this study, concern activities in the field of prevention and health promotion, documenting the activities of the Polish Red Cross or compliance with safety regulations in the work environment and everyday life. Many of them were prepared by artists associated with the Polish Poster School, cooperating with Polskie Zakłady Graficzne, Wydawnictwo Artystyczno-Graficzne, Instytut Wydawniczy Centralnej Rady Związków Zawodowych and Wydawnictwo Państwowego Zakładu Higieny. Posters were placed in visible places, e.g. in hospitals, clinics, offices or mass media. Their task was to educate the society and develop proper habits in everyday life.

The first non-formalized samples of medical care for children at the primary schools, young people educating in vocational schools, young people at the secondary general-education schools and for people at the preparatory institutes as well as in the teacher education were already taken in the 80s of the 19th century.
The duties of the district doctors, not yet school doctors, were limited to checking compliance regulations in the area of the general condition of school buildings and hygienic conditions in the abovementioned areas and buildings. Only in isolated cases did the doctors, mostly out of their own free will, attempt to carry out
the regular medical examinations with the aim of recording physical and mental defects as well as the general health situation of children and adolescents of both sexes.

Despite the consciousness of the medical world, the scope of duties and obligations of school doctors was only defined and confirmed by state regulations in the first two decades of the 20th century. The school doctors became representatives of the public health care in educational institutions confirmed by government regulations. They were not only concerned with the observance of hygiene regulations, but above all with the prophylaxis of childhood diseases, infectious, venereal or occupational diseases (including vocational counseling), with the diagnosis of physical and mental dysfunctions and with the elimination of the pathologies associated with alcoholism. They carried out their tasks in close cooperation with the Youth Welfare Office.

Sister Klemensa of the Assumption, Janina Wójcik (1893–1982), was born in Nowy Sącz, to the family of Ignacy – a railwayman and Jadwiga née Zwierzyńska. She graduated from the Private Teachers’ Seminary in Tarnów, gaining qualifi cations to teach manual labor in elementary schools. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in 1917. She made her perpetual profession in 1925. Before the outbreak of World War II, she worked in the monasteries in Wirów, Szymanów, Jarosław, Słonim, Niżniów and Maciejów as an economist, refectory and vestress. After the outbreak of World War II, she was forced to leave the monastery in Maciejów. She stayed briefl y in Lviv. In 1940, she was deported to the Mariinsky Autonomous Socialist Republic of the USSR. She worked in the canteen in Nowa Strojka, then in the hospital in Joszkar-Oła. In the 1970s, Sister Klemensa wrote down retrospective memoirs entitled “Memoirs from Russia of Sister Klemensa of the Assumption (Janina Wójcik). My memories of the last war (1939–1946)”. They count 25 single-sided pages. They include the time of deportation, with particular emphasis on information about the work performed. Sister Klemensa returned to Poland, to Nowy Sącz in 1946.