100 years of the Tatra Volunteer Rescue Service

[mkporwit]

As some of you know, the MRA was founded in 1959 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Turns out the Polish TOPR is celebrating its 100th. There was an article in one of the major Polish dailies about them, and I took the liberty of translating it. Hopefully some of you will find it interesting. The original article is here and there are some pictures here .

 

An oath given

by Monika Rogozinska, Nov 11, 2009

 

"A terrible scene is revealed: ski tracks crossing the slope disappear

among jumbled blocks of an enormous avalanche... they don't emerge from

the other side!"

 

This was how Mariusz Zaruski described the search for Mieczyslaw

Karlowicz, who in February of 1909 failed to return to Zakopane from a

solo ski tour. A few days earlier the 33 year old composer celebrated a

triumphant reception of his new symphonic triptych in the Warsaw

Philharmonic. Only forty eight hours earlier he helped Zaruski edit an

appeal for the creation of the Tatra Volunteer Rescue Service (in

Polish, Tatrzanskie Ochotnicze Pogotowie Ratunkowe, abbreviated TOPR).

Then he headed out to the Hala Gasienicowa to try out a new camera.

Zaruski and Stanislaw Gasienica Byrcyn with friends who arrived to help

their friend dug out Karlowicz's body and with the found camera took a

photo of the body. At the scene of the accident Zaruski stuck a branch

of rowan into the snow. In the spring it put out green shoots.

 

The death of the well-known composer, climber and skier in an avalanche

on the slopes of Maly Koscielec was a shock. It accelerated the creation

of the highlander rescue service. On October 29 1909, the

Austro-Hungarian governor of Galicia in Lwow approved the charter of the

association: The Tatra Volunteer Rescue Service -- the fourth mountain

rescue organization in the world after the Austrian, French and Swiss;

the first outside the Alps.

 

It's helm was taken by the "Tatra Commander-in-Chief" -- Mariusz

Zaruski, painter, skier, climber, sailor, toughened by years of sailing

on the Arctic Ocean while under Tsarist exile. Karlowicz was

posthumously added to the founding members. On a boulder at the site of

his death was carved this inscription: "Non omnis moriar -- I shall not

wholly die". This same inscription will be cast on a bell that will be

hung in a church in Cherson -- a Ukranian city where General Zaruski was

tortured to death.

 

Already in the first year of activity of the TOPR there occurred a

tragedy that became the pretext for discussion about the boundaries of

duty and sacrifice. Discipline, courage, soundness of mind, prudence --

these are the cardinal virtues which should characterize an ideal

rescuer, as defined by commander Zaruski. Two of those were cast aside

by his second, Klemens Bachleda -- one of the best climbers of his time,

known as the king of the Tatra guides. In the summer of 1910 an

exhausted climber arrived at the refuge at Morskie Oko. He had left an

injured friend on the wall of Maly Jaworowy. They had both fallen. The

rescuers left that night in carriages from Zakopane. In the morning they

started climbing the wall, down which cascaded streams of icy water and

showers of rocks. "Rain poured down mixed with hail and snow, lightning

struck. From the cold and exhaustion we could barely make any progress"

noted Zaruski in the mission report book. When he decided that it is

inconceivable to continue onwards because it is too dangerous for the

rescuers he ordered them to turn around. Klimek Bachleda did not listed.

He climbed onwards. "Klimek, come back!" ordered the commander. "Have to

rescue a person" said Klimek and went to his death.

 

The body of the tourist was found on the third day. "He died due to

exposure and spinal injuries" noted Zaruski. Klimek Bachleda was killed

by rockfall. They found the remains a week later. "The body was broken,

the head almost completely separated" related the commander. Both

deceased were carried down and transported to Zakopane. Klimek's grave

carries this inscription "He sacrificed himself and died". To this day

each new member must find the boundary between sacrifice and

responsibility anew.

 

The Fate of the World on a rope

 

There was a day when a tatra rescuer held the fate of the world on a

rope. Stanislaw Gasienica Byrcyn was a founding member of TOPR. "In the

summer of 1914 father guided a group of students and a professor to the

Valley of the Five Lakes via Stary Zawrat. They heard someone calling

for help" says Stanislaw's son, Kazmierz Gasienica Byrcyn, a TOPR

rescuer for 49 years. "Snow filled the couloir. In a deep crevasse

between the rock and the snow were two wretches. Father had a rope and

along with the rprofessor he pulled out the tourists, plied them with

hot tea and escorted them to the Five Lakes. Soon he was called up to

serve in the Austrain army. He was wounded in the war, captured by the

russians and sent to Siberia. He returned in 1922. The same professor

had once again returned to the Tatra. He did not know what had happened

to my father. He still corresponded with one of those rescued on Zawraw

-- with Vladimir Iliych Lenin. 'To this day Lenin owes me a days worth

of guide pay', Stanislaw Gasienica Byrcyn would say later. 'If I had

known that it was he, Europe's fate could have been very different.' Not

that he would have cut or bitten through the rope or anything, but he

could have figured something out" adds Kazimierz.

 

The TOPR phenomenon

 

'I voluntarily swear on my honor, as long as I am able to answer every

call of the commander or his second, regardless of time of year or day,

or weather. I will come where called and go into the mountains where

ordered by the commander or his second to search for those lost and

bring them succor'

 

Among the first that said the words of this oath created by Zaruski and

sealed with a handshake were other highlander guides: Jedrzej Marusak

Jarzabek and Jakub Wawryto Krzeptowski; climbers and ski pioneers:

Henryk Bednarski - a teacher, and Stanilaw Zdyb; Janusz Zulawski -- the

director of the Lwow radio station and later the Wilno Polish Radio,

Jerzy Zulawski -- writer and poet, Rafal Malczewski, Jacek's son --

writer and painter. This social formula works to this day. The

organization is made up of native highlanders, migrants to Zakopane and

other people of various professions in love with the Tatra -- doctors,

artists, sportsmen, bureaucrats, journalists, pilots, scientists,

priests. A book could be written about each of them. Books have been

written about many of them already. The Service came into being when

Zakopane was one of the main centers of literary and artistic life in a

partitioned Poland. The fate of the Service became part of our culture.

 

"The TOPR phenomenon is that disparate individuals, ambitious and

stubborn, in the service of a common goal willingly subordinate

themselves to a colleague who directs the rescue" says Michal Jagiello,

a former commander and now director of the National Library in Warsaw.

"Mutual trust is an absolute requirement" The rescuers shared the fate

of the nation. 72 year old Mariusz Zaruski died in a Soviet prison.

Jozef Gasienica Tomkowy was exeuted by the Germans. Bronislaw Czech

refused to train the German ski jumping team and perished in Auschwitz.

Henryk Bednarski wound up there for helping those fleeing over the Tatra

to Hungary. Wawrzyniez Zulawski fought in the Warsaw Uprising. Jozef

Krzeptowski, a Tatra courier, was exiled to Siberia when the Soviets came.

 

After the war TOPR changed its name and structure, but the nature of the

service remained the same. 1958 was a breakthrough year, when the Dewitz

family donated their insurance payout to the Service after their

daughter, a climber, perished in a plane crash in Switzerland. That

money was used to buy alpine equipment and a Gramminger harness, which

facilitated extracting a patient from the wall. Wiktoria and Olgierd

Dewitz became honorary members of the organization. That same high honor

was also bestowed that year on... premier Jozef Cyrankiewicz (pretty

much despised by most Poles -- Marcin).

 

"The alpine get-up had no instructions. We learned to use it on

ourselves" -- tells Jozef Uznanski, the rescue doyen. "Climbers ascended

steeper and steeper walls around Morskie Oko. They did not believe that

we could rescue them from there. They thought that we would have to call

the Austrians or the Swiss. But we trained and practiced. Using the

harness is team work based on mutual trust. The manufacturer guaranteed

its suitability for rappels up to 300m. We would do rappels to the

patioent of 500m. And we could have done longer ones, working with such

a team!" An lower down the overhanging face of the Kazalnica

Mieguszowiecka made the biggest impression on Uznanski. He was suspended

on the end of a thin steel cable and it seemed to him that he was

hanging right over the middle of the Black Pond. There were sometimes

problems with the swivel carabiner. Pirouettes while hanging on rope

caused vertigo, always worse for the patient. "I was being lowered from

Kazalnica with Andrzej Sklodowski, a fellow rescuer, whose partner had

dislocated his shoulder. While Andrzej was on my back he started

vomiting. We were quite the sorry sight when we reached the bottom"

 

Catastrophe

 

The arrival of the helicopter was the next breakthrough. The first

flight to the scene of an accident in the Valley of the Five Lakes was

made in 1963 by an SM-1 helicopter piloted by Tadeusz Augustyniak.

Fifteen years later that Valley was the scene of the first helicopter

accident -- for many years a secret. A Mi-2 helicopter was descending to

pick up an injured skier. Suddenly it disappeared in a cloud of snow,

which exploded like smoke. Parts of the rotor flew out of that cloud,

giving hints of the drama taking place. The helicopter tumbled down the

slope. Improbably there were no injuries other than two broken ribs by

one of the rescuers. The communist authorities of the People's Republic

of Poland blacked out all news of the accident. The machine,

manufactured in Poland under Soviet license, was not allowed to have

accidents. An investigating commission came to the refuge in another

Mi-2, which was later unable to take off due to engine failure. A third

Mi-2 had to be called in to help. They ordered that the crashed

helicopter be carted out. To facilitate that task, rescuer Mietek Burdyl

chopped it into pieces with an axe.

 

There were tragic days for TOPR. On August 11, 1994, a Sokol helicopter

crashed in the Olczyska Valley while on a rescue. Two experienced

rescuers, Stanislaw Matej and Janusz Kubica, as well as two pilots:

Janusz Rybicki and Boguslaw Arendarczyk, lost their lives. A day before

New Years Eve in 2001, a during a night operation in the Valley of the

Five Lakes, an avalanche killed two rescuers: Marek Labunowicz, a park

warden and accomplished highlander musician, and Bartek Olszanski, a

student.

 

In 100 years about 58 thousand people were helped by the service.

Reciting the oath and shaking the commander's hand has been done by 675

rescuers. Among them were a handful of women. The first one admitted was

Zofia Paryska, in 1947. A botanist and geographer, the first Polish

woman on the summits of Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn and Monta Rosa, and

the first certified female alpine guide in the world. Along with her

husband Witold, the commander of the Service after WWII, they were the

first couple in the organization. "Is the work in TOPR suitable for

women?" wonders Krystyna Salyga, a climbing and skiing instructor,

guide, and for 13 years a member of TOPR. "Decidedly not! I remember my

first evacuation from Kasprowy with an injured skier. Everyone came out

to watch, to see how I would perform. Those red sweaters looking down

from above... I remember a rescue on the northwest wall of Lower Rysy,

retrieving a dead German... a malicious commander gave me half of an

alpine carriage to carry. I had my butt kicked, carrying that carriage!

I rode in the gramminger as well, but only in training" And yet she

finds her work in the Service to have been the most satisfying in her

life. She doesn't take away from the achievements of women rescuers.

Usually affiliated with one of the refuges they knew their terrain well,

were often first on scene giving aid. For example the funny, beloved

highlander Cesia Slodyczka from Dolyna Strazyskiej -- the expert on

Giewont's north face. Or Janina Pychowa from Kuznice -- full of joy and

humor, she allowed a select fiew to call her Mom. She arrived in

Zakopane after a medic course in Lwow. She lived in such a spot that

people often knocked on her door to report accidents on the ski slopes.

She would take her sled and hike up. In 1955 she graduated from the

rescue course. "Sometimes warmth, some hot tea and a few kind words mean

a lot" says Krystyna Salyga. "I was often on duty in Kuznice. For years

people would come and ask: is Mom Pychowa still around? Unfortunately,

no longer".

 

"These days TOPR is a modern organization, equipped to high European

standards" says commander Jan Krzysztof. The organization performs big

wall, avalance, cave and ski rescue and has their own helicopter. With

professional and volunteer rescuers. "Mainly we deal with ski accidents"

says Adam Marasek, former second-in-command, a rescuer for 37 years.

Their numbers grow along with the number of lifts and accident-causing

shaped skis (thanks to those mediocre skiers think they can ski) that

require strong legs. Up to 20 people a year perish in the Tatra, usually

as a result of slipping on snow and ice, heart attacks, and lightning.

Fall is the time for suicides. They come here from the entire country.

Usually they jump from Nosal or Giewont.

 

What would we wish for TOPR? That they continue to grow and have as

little to do as possible.

 

Monika Rogozinska is the last woman accepted into TOPR in 1979. She took

her oath in 1982, and lived and worked in the Valley of the Five Lakes.

 

 

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Cool, thanks for translating that!

[BirdDog]

That was very interesting. Thanks for translating and posting.