[Aleksander ŁADOŚ] Author's typescript with memoirs of September 1939 and a collection of photographs and archival materials related to Min. Aleksander Łados (1891-1966), 1940s.

[Aleksander ŁADOŚ] Author's typescript with memoirs of September 1939 and a collection of photographs and archival materials related to Min. Aleksander Łados (1891-1966), 1940s.

The collection includes:

"Breakfast. An excerpt from an unpublished diary". Diary probably written after 1945.
Typescript on ribbed paper. 10 k. written single-spaced. In the typescript handwritten notes and deletions (probably by the author). On the last page the stamp: "Aleksander Ładoś | Ministre Plenipotentiare de Pologne".
Excerpt from a diary, already written during the years of World War II. In it, the author describes in detail the first day of the war in Warsaw ("Anyway, so far, the city is not bombed. They are destroying mainly Okęcie") and recreates, among other things, the story of a breakfast in "a small professorial apartment on Kredytowa Street in Warsaw," at which were present, among others, Prof. Henryk Tennenbaum (the host), Marshal Maciej Rataj, General Władysław Sikorski.

Excerpt: "In Warsaw one could already know the war. On the dirty and littered sidewalks, instead of the usual wave of passers-by and strollers, there were clusters of soldiers of various weapons, some in brand-new uniforms, straight from the mobilization warehouses, others in worn-out uniforms, probably still remembering the war of 1920".

Various visions of the future of the war and Poland run through the text - a catastrophic one, the clue of which is uttered, among others, by Marshal Rataj: "[...] the Germans are advancing at an unbelievable pace, that in the face of their armored weapons and aircraft our troops are powerless, although they fight with the courage of despair. The peasants bear me terrible news. This war will probably end for us in a few weeks." It is counterbalanced by General Wladyslaw Sikorski's optimistic vision of help from England and France.

Condition: yellowing of paper, minor tears.

2 photographs, size: 14 x 9.5 cm, originally glued on cardboard backing with imprinted dry embossing of photo establishment.

Dedications on the back of both photographs.
A group of performers of "The Highland Wedding". - dedication "To the highly esteemed Minister Ladosha - in memory from the interned Polish soldiers of the 4th W. P. S. P. in Grunenmatt - Switzerland on 22.IX.1940" and the undersigned participants in the performance.

Program of the concert of the Choir of Polish interned soldiers at the Saalbau Aarau opera house, on February 26, 1941. On the program a handwritten note. 1 k. with dimensions: 12.5 x 18 cm.

Patriotic poem with dedication to Minister R. P. Aleksander Ładoś. Date. "Switzerland - Easter at internment 9.IV.1944". 1 k. with dimensions: 25.5 x 20.5 cm.

Aleksander Ładoś (1891-1966) - Polish diplomat, consular official, publicist and politician. A member and informal leader of the group known from his name as the "Ładoś group" or the "Bern group," which from 1941 to 1943 issued illegal Latin American passports to Jews from ghettos in occupied Poland. [after wikipedia.pl]