The elixir of a successful life
IT DOESN'T FIT IN YOUR HEAD
The elixir of a successful life
Zenon Nowopolski
A long time ago - on August 24, 1939 to be exact - mobilization uprooted him from his native Lomza, where he had lived for more than 35 years, not counting a break to study in Warsaw. Not for a moment did he think at the time that this was his farewell to this land. He had barely had time to get superficially acquainted with the duties of the veterinary service in the Independent Operational Group "Narew" - when one of his subordinates reported to him that he was wanted.
No, he couldn't have been wrong! The scout uniform and the red cross bag slung over his shoulder could only be his wife Zofia of Mogilnicki coat of arms Lubicz. "Only in this family are women - they are so stubborn," he thought with a tearful smile, .at the same time recalling family stories about the adventures of her grandmother, who trodden all paths to get her husband out of the invaders' prison. "I volunteered to be a paramedic," Sophia said in a voice that precluded any discussion in advance, "After all, I can't leave you alone."
They were together again - for more than 30 days of fighting and wandering. Now, after almost 50 years, they seem like one great battle full of despair and hope, interrupted only by hours or even minutes of slumber; often even standing. After all, first there was the great retreat, and then - breaking through towards Warsaw, to help; first from the SGO "Narew", then a survivor of me Podlaska Cavalry Brigade of General Kmicic-Skrzynski, and then in the SGO "Polesie" of General Franciszek Kleeberg. Constantly under fire or bombardment. And finally silence: the general considered without sense further fighting. In humiliation they went to the fortress in Deblin. She (and other women) were soon carried to Radom, and after a few days were released.
She immediately made efforts to get her husband released, collected various documents, and raided German officials in their offices, as well as apartments. Thrown in - she returned through other doors. The resistance of the bureaucratic machine (or more precisely: the German official of Polish origin) was finally broken. Only she knows that the decision was significantly influenced by her ancestral pretzels. But they were together again. They offered him a job in Kozienice or Pionki. After some consideration, he chose a small slaughterhouse in Glowaczow. It should be quieter there. But after just a few weeks they were right in the center of the conspiratorial work. They transported secret letters and illegal documents, kept false kennkarts and people waiting for them to be issued, conducted radio intercepts, and duplicated the news thus obtained and distributed it among the local population in the form of leaflets. They cooperated with the Peasant Battalions and the Home Army. All this alongside a German military training ground.
Sophie used her pedagogical training and taught local children. They provided food and warm clothing to prisoners of war in the training grounds. Tadeusz was the organizer of the action to free from the camp twenty Gru zins, who initially fought in a Polish partisan unit and later tried to break through to Western Belarus. (In the first half of the 1960s, the Kielce press published letters - the commander of that group, today - the chief bookkeeper of the "Shakhtior" sanatorium in Khaltubo Shalva Babunashvili was looking for the doctor who organized the escape of his group. By circuitous routes, the newspaper reached Sophia and Tadeusz, thanks to which correspondence was exchanged, and then - many visits to Georgia, cordial meetings, photos and articles in the press.
When the war came to an end, the Poznan administrative authorities offered him a job in Rogozno. They did not stay there long, however, and in June 1945 they moved, to Miedzyrzecz. He was laying the foundations of the district veterinary service, but it was going reluctantly, as he was the only specialist in the area. She moved to succor him, commuting to Poznań where she completed veterinary courses. From then on they were always together: from dawn to dusk in the field, and later - at home. During one of their trips, she suffered an accident.
- It was such an old, post-German motorcycle without a rear saddle, he recalls. - So we put an ordinary chair on its frame. One of the turns turned out to be too sharp, and I must have fallen into a short nap, because at the last moment I leaned the wrong way. I lay sick for a long time, and Tadeusz stayed home more often.
It was then that he began to make some contraptions that he had no time for before. He conducted research evaluating the nutritional conditions of animals, mainly cows and goats. The forage deficiencies he found in them directed his work toward studying the micronutrient content of feed, and then -, in the soil. Many officials took his research as an inexplicable quirk. "We here are trying to make sure the forage doesn't run out o he leaves with I bone," they significantly knocked their heads. He did not relent, however, despite the difficulties of the second half of the 1940s In his mind stood the image of a closed cause-and-effect cycle soil, grass, animal, milk, human. So he began to work on a drug that would strengthen the animal's body while trying it on himself and his wife. They were getting louder and louder in the area. People began coming to Miedzyrzecz who had already lost hope for their own or their loved ones' recovery. "Do not stop taking the medicine," he warned them. - Micronutrients are only meant to strengthen the body to fight the disease."
No, he will not say that the publicity surrounding the issue did not please him. He even thought that it would help push the official recognition of micronutrients to start industrial production more quickly. Soon, however, he noticed a strange correlation: the intervening publications triggered an increased interest in them by ... prosecutors. Accusations of treating patients with qualifications began. Most of the cases, however, did not happen, because they went to officials whose relatives benefited from micronutrients. The first of the trials took place in the 1950s. At the trial, however, it turned out that so evidence of the harmful activity of micronutrients. Again the case returned to the courtroom in 1968, at which time the defense presented the opinion of the director of a small oncology hospital in -Wyrosby near Sokolow Podlaski, where the specifics had been used for years. The defendant won, but the hospital director lost; he was soon dismissed from his post.
Information about the TP-1 and TP-2 specifics (these are his initials, although a patent for the drugs was registered on both of them years later) appeared in magazines - including specialized ones - around the world. Letters of request, thanks and invitations poured in. They intensified after the TV broadcast. They devoted all their time to the production of both peculiarities and ointments; every now and then someone knocked on the door of the house on Staszica Street asking for them. Intercity connected more than a dozen phone calls per hour from Poland and the world.
Another folder contains letters of two-faced men. One of them - letterhead of an important office, although private: "I kindly ask you, Mr. Doctor, to provide my brother-in-law with the peculiarities produced by you, since no medicines help him anymore, and the doctors give him at most six months to live." Another on the same paper still private: "My brother-in-law has been taking your micronutrients for two years now, and his health has improved significantly." While the third - on the same letterhead and signed by the same hand - is already official: "We would like to inform you that our studies have not shown a curative effect of your preparations." Another; "Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to conduct experiments on animals."
- Is it just plain human envy, or is it laziness and convenience, an unwillingness to take above and beyond the call of duty? Are the same people doing the next stage of reform in our country? If so, I see it blackly," ponders Dr. Podbielski
Years later, they lived to see a patent for both specifics. However, no one wants to take up their production to this day. Meanwhile, the Americans made a one-time offer to the doctor, which he, however, did not accept. Recently, they have become interested in the research conducted by Professor Tolpa. He supposes that his peat preparation most likely contains identical ingredients.
- Only now do I see that I kidnapped myself with a hoe to Mars," he says. If even a man with scientific degrees, laboratory and human facilities, and recently even money, finds it difficult to break through all the bureaucratic barriers, what am I a provincial doctor of veterinary sciences to say. However, I do not consider this time wasted. I have evidence that I have helped - many people, I have prolonged life for some, others I have made the anticipation of the coming of death less painful. It seems to me that I fought for a just cause.
A long, long time ago - back in the early 1920s - when he was a student at a Lomza high school; she, on the other hand, a student at a female teachers' seminary and a girl scout, they performed in an amateur theater. To this day they still remember those patriotic performances evoking ovations from the audience, when he performed the role of a convict in "The Tenth Pavilion." Even today, a tear still turns his eye when he recalls the touching scene of saying goodbye to his mother, who was just played by his wife. At that time they traveled around the surrounding villages and parochial villages, if only with "Krysia leśniczanka" or "Zosia and the lancer," in which he was the lancer and she, of course, Zosia because who else?
- We played not only things that were strongly patriotic," he says, "Do you remember the performance in Jarnuty? - begins to recite what role. - Balucki's "Fat Fish" - she guesses - Wait, who did I play there? - she wonders and after a moment answers with a line from that play.
It was already then that she saw Tadeusz as her husband. His stay at the veterinary college in Warsaw did not give her peace of mind. Finally, she decided to take a break from teaching and leave for a three-year study at the school of household and rural farming. However, also in Warsaw, during their "chance" and planned meetings, there was still no talk of marriage.
In 1931 she was in Lomza again, without him, however. She returned da work in education and activity in scouting, which was her, passion still, at the seminary. At first she functioned as a troop leader, and later took over - after Marysia Moraczewska - the Emilia Plater scout troop, A big surprise for her was the proposal to take over as commander of the women's troop - after the excellent organizer, dh. Jawdyńska She cooperated at the time with the commander of the men's troop, dh. Stefan Woyczynski. In the jointly published magazine "Czuwaj" she published her first article in life - "From the portfolio of a girl scout." She signed it with the pseudonym "Lubicz":
In October 1932 Tadeusz returned from the army and took a position as district veterinarian - in Piatnica. It was during that period that he worked with Father Ciborowski of Little Plock, who authored a book on useful insects, but above all became famous for his use of bees and silkworms to weave liturgical vestments, later donated to the Holy See and da remains in collections there today.
The young active and darting veterinarian, who at the same time did not shy away from social activities, was quickly noticed by the local authorities. In 1934, starost Syska offered him a transfer to Kolno. He agreed willingly. After all, he was already married to Sophia , and the trip allowed them to escape from the guardianship of the family and take up a life on their own.
In this Kolno was no longer the seat of district government, and its territory was divided between Ostroleka and Lomza. The reasons for this degradation included a declining economy and constant dissension between farmers and the authorities. The starost had one more quiet task for his envoy: to rebuild the dairy and, later, agricultural cooperative. For in that area, the dairy cooperatives in Jedwabne, Stawiska and Turoś li were dissolved in short order. The cooperative in KoIna was slipping toward collapse, and the local dairy - a q of a post-German military barracks - was deteriorating in the o czach.
She taught school and led the school's scout troop, he not only served as district veterinarian-the only one from Jedwabne to Myszyniec-but also chaired the board of the dairy cooperative. "We don't elect to the board those who will sell us out for a bottle of booze," he thundered at village meetings. People listened to him and believed him without limits. They didn't even accept a loan from the district governor and proceeded to build a dairy in Kolno solely from their own contributions. Milk catchments were established in several other villages.
He was happy about the new dairy o guided visitors not only from Bialystok, but also from Warsaw, and proudly showed them the new-school Swedish machinery and equipment. But the day came on August 24, 1939.
Both are 85 years old However, they look sixty years old, and behave
move like physically fit forty-year-olds. On the other hand, they laugh and strut around like toddlers who have played "quite a prank on an unexpected visitor: with their appearance; their behavior; and mostly - the announcement of life into their 120s.
The Gorzow provincial authorities have recently been making preparations for celebrations to mark their 85th birthday and 55th wedding anniversary. Dr. Tadeusz Podbielski, a veterinary scientist, wonders if this is an appropriate occasion to remember the 40th anniversary of their unsuccessful struggle to popularize TP 1 and TP-2 specifics.
Zenon Nowopolski.
