Born December 10, 1936, in Puchały. Son of Remigiusz (1888–1965) and Barbara Świato-Pełk-Czetwertyńska (1900–1970). Married (1969) to Magdalena Findeisen (1943). Father of Barbara (1972), Adam (1974), Anna (1976), Jan (1978), and Gabriel (1984). Died June 25, 2014, in Miami, Florida, buried October 31, 2014, in Laski.
Farewell to Włodzimierz Grocholski
On May 29, 1965 (almost 50 years ago), at the Military Cemetery in Laski, we bid farewell to Colonel Remigiusz Grocholski, a hero of the fight for independence, a father of sons and daughters to whom he passed on a life model consistent with the motto: GOD, HONOR, and COUNTRY, indicating both a way of thinking and principles of conduct.
The entrance of the Colonel into the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw was eloquent. Behind the father followed, in order of seniority: Mikołaj, Barbara, Remigian, Michał, Anna, Ignacy, Franciszek, Włodzimierz, Piotr, and Elżbieta. This caused understandable commotion: some stood up, words of recognition were heard…
And when they scatter like birds across the wide world, the recognizable mark of the Father — a unique Esprit de corps — will remain on them. One could call out: Stand to the Roll Call!
Włodzimierz did not have an easy task. The new Poland was not a nurturing mother for everyone, nor was it particularly friendly to the values that Polish Homes, among them Pietniczany and Strzyżawka, were imbued with until recently. Not seeing the necessity to adapt to the little-understood circumstances, Włodzimierz lived in his somewhat fanciful reality, going through life with his captivating smile, trusting and friendly to people, rushing to help whenever needed. For this, he was uncompromising in his views, defending the ideals he believed in with a raised visor — semper fidelis. Such were once the companions of Mohort, and Włodzimierz now seemed a similar knight. It is hard not to see in this attitude, gesture, and fantasy, the adored Father.
Towards the end of his stay in Warsaw, Włodzimierz experienced a fascination with Film, entering this world with his characteristic engagement and joy of life.
However, Włodzimierz found his fulfillment only in the family he established far from here, giving his own children the values he once received with the question: “Who are you? A little Pole…”. Passing on the tradition sanctified by the work of generations is our privilege, but also our duty at the same time. Włodzimierz fulfilled it, as he did — with all his being. To the end. But he was not alone in this. Magdalena stood by him, equally devoted to the closest ones, protecting and supporting them with maternal care. All who visited this open, hospitable home appreciated it, finding in it undisturbed friendship and warmth, an atmosphere of all-encompassing love. Whenever I encounter such a dominant feeling, I always return in thought to the “Hymn of Love” by St. Paul from the 1st Letter to the Corinthians: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…”
Pietniczany and Strzyżawka have passed, becoming a Borderland Memento, a Polish trace on the ruins of Lithuania and Ruthenia. In their place, new Grocholski nests arise, perhaps not with the former splendor, but equally resistant to the vicissitudes and adversities of fate, and above all maintaining the awareness of spiritual and mental bonds. It is to these qualities that “Krakowskie” owes its magnetic strength, this Genius Loci, where despite the passage of years, everyone has their place, and the temple in which we are now has become almost their home chapel. That is why there, among family memories and mementos, we saw each other for the last time.
If the comparison of some people to flowers is apt, then Włodzimierz was one of them. Unfailingly radiant and young, with an inseparable sense of humor, exuding an aura of positive thinking, cheerfulness, and the conviction that Truth and Good, as attributes of God, must prevail. We connect with this our HOPE, sister of FAITH AND LOVE.
With them, you will remain, Włodzimierz, in our thoughts and in the messages of future generations: with Faith, Hope, and Love. Despite this, how little we can offer you today. Perhaps… a distant echo of the National Poem? At the same time recalling the memory of another poet, still present among us, Fr. Jan Twardowski. For poetry gains extraordinary power when it connects what is past with today, and what is present with the eternity that awaits us.
Like migratory cranes over a wild island,
flying over an enchanted palace in spring
and hearing the loud complaint of an enchanted boy,
each bird dropped one feather for the boy,
He made wings from them and returned to his own.
Speech by Stanisław Ledóchowski at the Church of the Visitation Sisters of St. Joseph the Betrothed in Warsaw, October 31, 2014, on the occasion of the funeral of Włodzimierz Grocholski in Laski.
Fototeka – Włodzimierz Grocholski
Conversation of Małgorzata Subotić and Paweł Tomczyk with Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński
About two such…
RZECZPOSPOLITA October 15, 1998
Born on June 18, 1949. Both are doctors of law. Lech Kaczyński invented the formula of the Center Agreement, and Jarosław was until recently the president of this party. They held important positions in public life after 1989, including Jarosław Kaczyński being the head of the Office of President Lech Wałęsa, and Lech the president of the Supreme Audit Office of the previous term. Today one is an independent MP, and the other an academic at the University of Gdańsk.
Let’s settle at the outset: who was Jacek, and who was Placek?
Jarosław Kaczyński: – I was Placek.
Lech Kaczyński: – Sometimes we swapped roles and I played Placek, and Jarek Jacek.
Was it your idea?
Jarosław: – I don’t remember.
Lech: – It was when I was supposed to go on that roof.
Jarosław: – Yes, I went because Leszek had a fear of heights.
The directors obviously didn’t know about this swap?
Lech and Jarosław: – They knew.
Apparently, they couldn’t tell you apart.
Jarosław: – They could tell us apart because these were people with a trained eye, sensitive to the image, operators, directors.
Lech: – But ordinary people didn’t recognize us.
How did you end up in this film at all?
Jarosław: – There was a contest. Our uncle Stanisław Miedza-Tomaszewski simply tore a piece of paper from a notebook, wrote our names, and sent it. And did he tell you about it, or did he make a surprise?
Jarosław: – I don’t remember. We were very interested in the film at the time, we read reviews, we were happy when Polish films won awards at festivals.
Lech: – Not just films. During radio broadcasts of athletic matches of the Polish “wunderteam,” we both got a fever from excitement. Jarosław: – And of course, we dreamed of playing in a movie, but that dream was very abstract, like winning a million in the lottery.
Lech: – I don’t remember dreaming, but I also had no qualms about going to the first auditions. It was on Puławska, in a cinema hall. More than seventy pairs of twins from Warsaw and the surrounding area showed up. There were even two triplets.
Jarosław: – Like twins with a reserve player…
Lech: – With spare parts, as we joked at the time. At the very beginning, we sat politely somewhere in the back, and then a handsome man approached us, later it turned out that he was a real count, Włodzimierz Grocholski, one of the plan managers. And he moved us from the back rows to the front.
What caused you to be chosen?
Jarosław: – It seems to me that we were the most reliable candidates, due to our relatively mature age and decent aptitude.
Lech: – We were promising.
Jarosław: – We probably offered the greatest guarantee that it wouldn’t end in failure. As a curiosity, I can also say that our competitors, whom we beat, were the Walendziak brothers.
Lech: – But they weren’t the last competitors. The last ones were named Huber.
So it was the guarantee provided by maturity that decided?
Jarosław: – Apparently, in the film crew, there were various factions, including a very strong one of the Huber brothers’ supporters. However, our 12 years probably decided it.
When did you find out that you were the ones playing in the film?
Lech: – By the sea, near Cetniewo. July 26, 1961. I remember this date because I’m superstitious. Since then, I’ve considered this day a good one, although for thirty years nothing special has happened on this day.
Jarosław: – We got a telegram, that is, our parents got it, inviting them to “finalize the matter.” I remember this phrase.
Lech: – It seems to me that it was “finalize the boys’ game in our film,” but maybe you’re right.
Jarosław: – It definitely included the word “finalize.”
Who was the happiest?
Jarosław: – We both triumphed. The family was also pleased, no one was opposed.
The division of roles took place without any discussion?
Jarosław: – I don’t remember how it happened. Perhaps it started while we were still rehearsing with grandma, during the auditions. We acted out scenes, and grandma sat and judged. She had long been interested in acting and was a demanding critic.
Apparently, you played various pranks on the set?
Lech: – But not on the set… For example, Jarek locked the production manager and someone else in his room. This room was in a less frequented part of the studio, and no one heard them shouting.
And then what?
Lech: – He eventually let them out. He listened to the “just criticism” and locked them again.
Where were the scenes shot?
Jarosław: – Mainly in Łódź, but it started in Łeba. Before we got on set, they took care of our appearance. First, our heads. The wigs didn’t work out, so they ended up lightening our hair. And it hurt terribly.
Why?
Jarosław: – Because of the peroxide. Our hair was very difficult to lighten, and the peroxide had to be “sharpened.”
Lech: – But I preferred that to having a wig on my head for several hours a day. Even though the hair quickly grew back and the whole torture had to be repeated.
Jarosław: – They also gave us freckles. We were taken care of by the makeup artist, Mr. Szossler. An additional attraction in Łeba was that we were filming on dunes, which were then a training ground. There were still plenty of fragments from Rommel’s army exercises. And there was a donkey. But there were problems with it because contrary to the script, it didn’t want to throw us off.
Did it like you that much?
Jarosław: – It was a good donkey. Its trainer, however, was of rather strange customs…
Lech: – “Tresologist,” he insisted on being called.
Jarosław: – He could tell Helena Grossówna, a star of pre-war Polish cinema, who played our mother, that she didn’t look as she used to. Then he explained that he said it “with a garden.” The donkey didn’t want to throw us off, so they told us to stick some wedge in its groin, and it just stubbornly refused. Like a donkey. In the end, we jumped over it.
Lech: – I remember the rooster didn’t want to crow either.
Jarosław: – The worst were the pelicans. They were made from skins stripped from geese, so they didn’t smell very nice, inside they had an electrical installation, which often malfunctioned. And they poured water, because it was a storm scene. First cold, but since you can’t pour cold water on children, they started pouring hot. They couldn’t get the right temperature. The wind for this storm was made with an airplane propeller. It was a bit suffocating. This was the last phase of filming, rushed, the least pleasant. Of course, the worst was that school was approaching again. With the pelicans, there was another story. Initially, they were supposed to slide down a line from the fourth floor with us on their backs. Mom, of course, protested, and they put dummies on the pelicans.
There were no stuntmen?
Jarosław: – It was quite a height, and the stuntmen wouldn’t have managed. Besides, the first time these pelicans with dummies really fell. Then for the scene of falling into the water, another method was used. There were stuntmen, young swimmers from the local club.
Jacek and Placek are at least at the beginning of the film two classic rascals who even treated their own mother unsympathetically. Did you have trouble playing such roles?
Jarosław: – “About two such who stole the moon” was read to us aloud by Władzia, our 14-year-old housekeeper when we were five years old. We laughed, we liked the book very much. But when seven years later we played in the film, we already had an absolute distance. If they told us to shoot, we would shoot without blinking an eye and without feeling that it concerned us. Just a film. Although, on the other hand, we probably wouldn’t want to play Soviet pioneers.
Lech: – There was no identification with the role in the slightest degree. If we had any objections to the script, it was, for example, that in the book Jacek and Placek return to Zapiecek on horseback, and in the film, we walked on foot. We would have preferred on horseback.
How were the contacts with the adult world?
Jarosław: – Director Jan Batory and his wife, who was the editing director, were very nice. He really knew how to deal with children. There were a lot of colorful people in the crew, but there were no characters – speaking today’s ugly language – of the bum type, which also often occur in this world.
Lech: – Most were very kind to us, but some crossed the boundaries of good taste. The assistant production manager, for example, woke us up in the hotel in the morning with shouts: “Get up, get up! Grab grandma by the coat and to Łąkowa!” Because at that time grandma was taking care of us, and the studio was on Łąkowa.
Jarosław: – The shooting lasted half a year. We had home care the whole time. First, mom was with us, then grandma replaced her.
And during that time there were no conflict situations?
Lech: – We weren’t allowed to watch the working scenes. Batory thought we shouldn’t watch ourselves at all. I think only once we managed to sneak into the operator’s cabin.
Jarosław: – We really liked playing football. Leszek was a very good goalkeeper and when the film management watched those his dives, they were terrified that we would get hurt. They wanted us not to play football, and we didn’t want to hear about it, because it was a completely incomprehensible attack on our freedom. Each lost day on set increased the costs, and the film’s budget was only seven million zlotys. For comparison, “Knights of the Cross” cost forty million.
Lech: – When we were shooting scenes near Łódź, local bums sent our peer with a proposal that they would “painlessly” break our legs, and we would get compensation and “just give” them a few pennies.
What were the acting fees?
Jarosław: – Forty thousand for the two of us. Besides, mom was given the equivalent of a salary plus sixty-three zlotys per diem plus an apartment in the Łódź Grand Hotel. We also had two teachers. We really liked it when there were overtime hours on set, because then we didn’t have to study after work.
Lech: – We liked wandering around the studio, which had a lot of interesting things. They were finishing “Passenger” by Munk there at the time. I remember that we asked Aleksandra Śląska to show us what was in her holster. Unfortunately, it was empty. Several times Bogumił Kobiela, who was a very nice, friendly, and cheerful man, joined our table in the buffet. Marek Kondrat was also there, who was playing in “The Story of a Yellow Shoe” parallel to us. He was a year younger than us and also lived in the “Grand,” but in a regular room. Which filled us, residents of the apartment, with understandable pride.
Jarosław: – We went together to such a fairground shooting range near the hotel. As wealthy people, “working stars,” we could afford many shots. We shot fairly well, even quite well. It aroused surprise among the shooting range visitors because we were commonly taken for girls. We had long, light hair. Boys didn’t wear such hair then.
And what were the damages in the apartment that your mom had to pay for?
Jarosław: Grocholski, a twenty-four-year-old guy – although he claimed he was twenty-six – was very youthful. A twelve-year-old could befriend him. He collected old weapons, not some medieval ones, but from the times of World War II.
Lech: – He had explosives, smoke candles, TNT in blocks, primers. He brought TNT to our room, set it on fire. We liked it very much.
Jarosław: – It is known that ignited TNT does not explode, it just burns. Once we coaxed a smoke candle out of him and somehow out of curiosity, I started rubbing it. And in a few seconds, the whole room was in thick, sticky smoke. Fortunately, Grocholski was sick that day, lying in his room, one floor up. He ran down in just his underwear and neutralized the candle by scattering its contents. It smelled inhumanly. Mom had to pay for solid extra cleaning, waxing, and renovation of the charred furniture.
Why did you do that?
Jarosław: – Honestly speaking, I don’t know. Of course, I wasn’t some kind of madman, I knew you couldn’t light a candle in a hotel, I intended to light it in a more suitable place. But curiosity won: “and if I rub, what will happen?”.
Lech: – Thirty years later, I’m sitting in the office as the deputy chairman of “Solidarity”. Grocholski jumps in. I recognized him, “good morning,” “hi,” he greeted. We chatted for a moment. He said: – I’ll be back in a second. He left, and I haven’t seen him since.
What happened next? After returning to school?
Jarosław: – Nothing. We repainted ourselves dark again. And nothing.
No fears before the premiere?
Jarosław: – The film didn’t have a premiere, there was no ceremony. We were only at the children’s and youth club “Zygzaczek” at an unofficial premiere, a screening for members of that club.
Lech: – The children asked inquisitive questions.
Jarosław: – They were very learned. It amused us a lot.
Really nothing changed in the approach to famous actors in school desks?
Lech: – In the first period of the seventh grade, we had quite average results, a lot of threes. And then the teacher told dad that it was because we played in the film.
Didn’t you boast about dinners in SPATiF, the apartment in the “Grand”?
Jarosław: – We didn’t appreciate these achievements.
There was no reading of reviews with flushed faces?
Jarosław: – I would be lying if I said I remember even one review. But I probably read them. We weren’t compared to Shirley Temple.
But your acting was positively evaluated. Why didn’t you become actors?
Jarosław: – Not for a second did I intend to be an actor. If in any direction we were subtly steered in the family, it was to become scientists.
Lech: – And it was obvious to us that after studies you should do a doctorate.
Jarosław: – At that time, I was fascinated by Atlantis. I wanted to be the Schliemann of Atlantis. He discovered Troy, and I was supposed to discover Atlantis.
Lech: – Even in sixth grade, we received an offer to play in the next film. We even went to screen tests, but just to skip school. It was “Big, Bigger, and Biggest.”
Jarosław: – The next offer to appear in a film I got by phone when I was in the fourth year of studies. They needed an eighteen-year-old. They weren’t at all discouraged by the fact that I was already twenty-one. I convinced them only when I said: – Sir, but I’m 166 centimeters tall and weigh 73 kilos.
Do you often watch this film?
Lech: – We don’t specifically hunt for it, but it’s often on TV, then we watch at least a piece.
Do you sing the song ending the film yourselves?
Jarosław: “I’m a brave one and you’re a brave one, together we’re two brave ones.” We sang together, with false voices, but later, of course, two actresses dubbed their voices.
Your singing wasn’t very suitable?
Lech. – It wasn’t suitable at all.
PHOTOS BY MICHAŁ SADOWSKI and Jacek and Placek on the film set. FAMILY ARCHIVE PHOTOS