This year, the community of the school of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in Kielce (Poland) celebrates the tenth anniversary of the reestablishment of the school. One part of the celebration involved the ceremonial unveiling of a plaque dedicated to the memory of three Sisters of the Holy Family of  Nazareth involved in the school and parish who were imprisoned by the Communist authorities from 1952 to 1956:  Sister Isabel Hedwig Machowska, Sister Beatrice Hedwig Kirkor and Sister Benigna Julia Westwalewicz. The arrest of the sisters was connected to matters involving Bishop Czesław Kaczmarek, the ordinary of Kielce.  During a long investigation, the secret police were unable to connect the sisters to the case of the bishop.  Sister Beatrice was freed after a year in custody at the Motokowski prison in Warsaw.  Sister Benigna received a sentence of two years which was decreased to 14 months.  She returned to Kielce suffering from a terminal illness and died shortly afterward.  Sister Isabelle was sentenced to seven years imprisonment.  She was kept at the Fordon prison near Bydgoszcz. The sisters’ posture during their imprisonment, their courage and patience in the face of physical and psychological torture, their deep faith and confidence in God in these trying circumstances can be for us an example of steadfastness and faithfulness to God, to the Church and to Nazareth.

The architect Andrew Detka, with his wife Irene, prepared the plans for the plaque which was produce in Daleszyce by the Furmanek Company.

The dedication of the plaque took place on 2 June, 2011.  Among those who took part in the ceremony were:  Bishop Marian Florczyk, auxiliary bishop of Kielce;  Sister Benedetta Pielech, Provincial Superior of the Name of Mary province; Lucian Pietrzczyk, supervisor of schools in the Swiętokrzyskie region; Leszek Bukowski, head of the Kielce office of the Institute of  National Remembrance; Reverend John Sledzianowski; Professor Richard Gryz of the Jagellonian University; Rev. Edward Skotnicki; Rev. Adam Prus; representatives of the local government; Sisters from various homes of the province; representatives from the sisters’ school in Warsaw with their director, Sister Ruth Kawa and the colour guard and school community from Kielce.

Sister Benedetta and Mr. Lucian Pietrzczyk performed the ribbon cutting ceremony and Bishop Florczyk blessed the plaque. After a wreath laying ceremony, a group of students went to the cemetery to place flowers and to light a candle at the grave of Sister Benigna.

After the ceremony the guests and students went to the auditorium of the seminary to participate in a conference “The struggle for value in the Poland of Stalin”, organized by the school for secondary school students of the region. Sixteen schools participated. During the conference, papers were presented by:

• Dr. Jan Żaryn (Warsaw) – “The Stalinist character of the process of creating the new man and the totalitarian social system – unique or recurring?”
• Dr. Ryszard Gryz (Kielce) – “The Swiętokrzyskie region as a testing ground for the practiceo f Communist policy (1945-1956)”
• Sister Barbara Gromada, CSFN (Warsaw) – “The condition of the schools of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in Communist Poland”
• Sister Danuta Koziel, CSFN (Krakow) – “The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth from  Kielce imprisoned during the Stalinist era”
• Dr. Tomasz Domański (Kielce) – “The results of research carried out in relation to the release of the memories of Sister Isabelle Machowska.

Mr. Leszek Bukowski provided a summary of the conference.