The Polish Museum in Muri no longer exists

Polish museology has suffered a severe loss. The Polish Museum in Muri, also known as the Museum for the Polish Struggle for Freedom, has ceased to exist. It was the second largest Polish museum in Switzerland after the museum at Rapperswil Castle. On 11 November 2017, the Hermann Historica GmbH antique shop from Munich conducted the 75th live auction of most of the artefacts collected by Zygmunt Stankiewicz at the castle in Muri (Katalog Hermann Historica 75. Auktion: Museum zum Freiheitskampf des polnischen Volkes – die Sammlung Z. Stankiewicz, 11. Nov. 2017, lot 4801–4977). About 600 items grouped into 177 listings were put up for sale. Among them, there was a portrait of John III Sobieski from about 1677, Polish weapons and arms from the 17th–18th centuries, including the sabre from the National Museum in Lvov, over 50 maps of Polish territories from the 16th–17th centuries, 3 plans and 6 former views of Polish cities, 60 historical graphics, several hundred coins and medals, several dozens of badges and decorations, uniforms and military equipment, as well as 3 standards. On the next day of the auction, 14 November, a further part of the collection was sold, including the mitra ornata donated to the founder of the museum by John Paul II (Katalog Hermann Historica 75. Auktion: Orden und militärhistorische Sammlungsstücke aus aller Welt, 11. & 14. & 15. Nov. 2017, lot 5725).

Zygmunt Stankiewicz (1914–2010) took part in the defensive war in September 1939. Then he fought in the Polish Armed Forces in the West, in the 6th Border Infantry Rifle Regiment, part of the 2nd Rifle Division. Pushed together with the division to the Swiss border, he crossed it and was interned in the Helvetic Republic, where he remained permanently. After the war, he was the first director of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil. He founded the Polish Museum in 1955. He cumulated his collections by travelling around the world. He searched European antique shops and participated in auctions. He received numerous donations.

He opened the museum on 3 May 1984. The collections included iconography, cartography, numismatics and medals, phaleristics and militaria, all historical memorabilia, including diplomas, photographs and archives. They were to illustrate the whole history of the nation and the Polish state from the adoption of Christianity in 966 until the emergence of the Solidarity movement.

The 2017 auction led to the sale of the collections of the Polish Museum in Muri. This was against the will of the founder of the museum. Ethical doubts are aroused by the auctioning of those objects that Zygmunt Stankiewicz received as donations to enrich the museum’s collections, as a national treasury made available to the public, and not only a private collection. These included the portrait of Sobieski and the papal mitre, as well as uniforms and accoutrement of his friends from the war. The only optimistic effect of the rotation of the wheel of Fortune constituted the conviction that most of these objects returned to Poland.

Polish museology has suffered a severe loss. The Polish Museum in Muri, also known as the Museum for the Polish Struggle for Freedom, has ceased to exist. It was the second largest Polish museum in Switzerland after the museum at Rapperswil Castle. On 11 November 2017, the Hermann Historica GmbH antique shop from Munich conducted the 75th live auction of most of the artefacts collected by Zygmunt Stankiewicz at the castle in Muri (Katalog Hermann Historica 75. Auktion: Museum zum Freiheitskampf des polnischen Volkes – die Sammlung Z. Stankiewicz, 11. Nov. 2017, lot 4801–4977). About 600 items grouped into 177 listings were put up for sale. Among them, there was a portrait of John III Sobieski from about 1677, Polish weapons and arms from the 17th–18th centuries, including the sabre from the National Museum in Lvov, over 50 maps of Polish territories from the 16th–17th centuries, 3 plans and 6 former views of Polish cities, 60 historical graphics, several hundred coins and medals, several dozens of badges and decorations, uniforms and military equipment, as well as 3 standards. On the next day of the auction, 14 November, a further part of the collection was sold, including the mitra ornata donated to the founder of the museum by John Paul II (Katalog Hermann Historica 75. Auktion: Orden und militärhistorische Sammlungsstücke aus aller Welt, 11. & 14. & 15. Nov. 2017, lot 5725).

Zygmunt Stankiewicz (1914–2010) took part in the defensive war in September 1939. Then he fought in the Polish Armed Forces in the West, in the 6th Border Infantry Rifle Regiment, part of the 2nd Rifle Division. Pushed together with the division to the Swiss border, he crossed it and was interned in the Helvetic Republic, where he remained permanently. After the war, he was the first director of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil. He founded the Polish Museum in 1955. He cumulated his collections by travelling around the world. He searched European antique shops and participated in auctions. He received numerous donations.

He opened the museum on 3 May 1984. The collections included iconography, cartography, numismatics and medals, phaleristics and militaria, all historical memorabilia, including diplomas, photographs and archives. They were to illustrate the whole history of the nation and the Polish state from the adoption of Christianity in 966 until the emergence of the Solidarity movement.

The 2017 auction led to the sale of the collections of the Polish Museum in Muri. This was against the will of the founder of the museum. Ethical doubts are aroused by the auctioning of those objects that Zygmunt Stankiewicz received as donations to enrich the museum’s collections, as a national treasury made available to the public, and not only a private collection. These included the portrait of Sobieski and the papal mitre, as well as uniforms and accoutrement of his friends from the war. The only optimistic effect of the rotation of the wheel of Fortune constituted the conviction that most of these objects returned to Poland.