Confiscated by the Nazis, Masonic treasures are preserved in Poland

The imposing collection of Masonic objects in Poznan, in Poland, preserves its treasures, with its squares and compasses, engravings, old books and albums, some bearing the seal of the sinister Nazi dignitary Heinrich Himmler.

Around 80,000 volumes spread over more than a kilometer of shelves, many very old, others more recent, preserved in the library of the UAM University of Poznan (west).

It constitutes “one of the largest Masonic catalogs in Europe, or even the most important, according to some” indicates Iuliana Grazynska, curator of the collection.

“And it still holds mysteries” emphasizes Grazynska who has just begun to search 89 cardboard boxes of files collected by Himmler’s services and never classified.

Confiscated in Europe

“The nazis they detested Freemasonry” explains Andrzej Karpowicz, who for 30 years was responsible for the Poznań collection.

Karpowicz recalls that Nazism was “the fruit of a wave of anti-elites and anti-intellectuals”, and therefore inevitably “anti-Masons”.

“The Nazis hated Freemasonry,” explains Andrzej Karpowicz, who was responsible for the Poznan collection for 30 years.

Karpowicz recalls that Nazism was “the fruit of a wave of anti-elites and anti-intellectuals”, and therefore inevitably “anti-Masons”.

The Nazis closed the lodges or caused their dissolution, confiscated or burned their libraries. As the German army advanced, the collections from the conquered countries enriched those of the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, which also included archives related to Jews, Jesuits or witches, according to Karpowicz.

Transported to places better protected against Allied bombing, the collection was divided into three main parts, two of them hidden in Poland, and the third in the Czech Republic.

In 1945, the Polish authorities seize a part in Slawa Slaska (west), which numbered up to 150,000 volumes, and possibly included archives of the French collaborationist Henri Coston.

The rest was confiscated by the Red Army of the Soviet Union.

an old tradition

The Poznan Library established its Masonic collection in 1959, at the height of the communist era, when the Masonic movement was not legal.

As a general rule, Freemasonry “can only develop in democratic regimes”, says Dominique Lesage, co-author, with Anna Kargol, of the book “Liberté Égalité Fraternité sur les rives de la Vistule” (Liberty, Equality and Fraternity on the banks of the Vistula). ), about the renewal of the movement since the fall of communism in 1990.

But there was an old tradition, and the first Polish lodge, the Red Brotherhood, had been born in 1721.

Among its eminent freemasons, Poland has its last king Stanislas Augusto Poniatowski, its first president Gabriel Narutowicz or the great pianist Ignacy Paderewski.

According to Lesage’s work, there were in Poland in 2020 about 47 lodges of eight different obediences, bringing together about 800 members.

rare pearls

A wide staircase, rising to the bright ceiling of the old library building, leads to the Poznań collection.

Recently exhibited, a selection of rare pearls from this collection represented a true journey through time that, according to Masonic tradition and calendar, began 4,000 years before J.-C.

The first Masonic lodge was officially chartered in 1717 in England and its first constitution, written by James Anderson, and still widely observed, was published in 1723.

“We have the original and extremely rare edition of this Anderson constitution and all successive editions, as well as hundreds of Masonic statutes. It is the pride of our collection” emphasizes Grazynska.

Most of the library is made up of works from the 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in German, including all the Masonic encyclopedias in this language, drawings, engravings, menus, but also an almost complete record of the members of the lodges or workshops, over a period that extends to 1919.

“It’s a mine of information, from which you can extract at will,” says Karpowicz.