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Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie — 40.1999

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DOI Artikel:
Załęski, Krzysztof: Stanisław Lorentz as the creator of the "Modern" National Museum
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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18948#0034
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arrases, stolen during the fire in the Castle, were immcdiately purchased from
private hands). This effort continued throughout the occupation, including
the concealment in 1940 of the most valuable collections from the State Mint,
which had heen designated for export; the collections from the Czartoryski
Museum in Gołuchów, initially hidden in the cellar of the house at 12,
Kredytowa Street, but transferred in 1941 to the National Museum, where
they were submitted to conservation protecting them from export through
protracted inventory. It likewise transferred in 1943 part of the Zamoyski
collections from Kozłówka and the graphic collections from Sucha, deposited
in Międzyrzec Podlaski. From 1939 onward the National Museum guarded the
collections at Wilanów and Natolin at the reąuest of their owners, adding the
collections in Jabłonna in 1944. The director and his Staff left what is perhaps
the most beautiful notę in Polish museum history through their heroic rescue
of private and State collections. For his service and initiative in rescuing
endangered works of art, Lorentz was awarded the Cross Virtuti Militari even
prior to the city’s capitulation in 1939.

Ali Polish museums were closed during the war and the Nazi occupation. The
National Museum was transformed into the Museum der Stadt Warschau,
headed by the German curator Dr. Alfred Schellenberg, while Lorentz assumed
the title of Polish Leiter. A significant portion of the Staff was dismissed. The
Luftwaffe occupied the basement under pavilion I, while the wing V housed
the SS military arsenał. A secret inventory and documentation of the National
MuseunTs collections was undertaken by among others Prof. Zygmunt
Batowski, who was officially employed as a German translator. Analysis was

6. Meeting with curators
of the National Museum
atthe Director's office
during the Nazi
occupation.
From left to right:
Józef Grabowski,
Jan Morawiński,
Maria Mrozińska,
Bohdan Marconi,
Józef Grein,
Stanisław Lorentz,
Maria Ludwika
Bernhard,
Jerzy Sienkiewicz

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