Mikołaj Sobczak

Recto: Adam Gawron was born in 1899 in one of the towns on the Radom- Dęblin railway line. He was a political prisoner held in Auschwitz for fighting with the partisans. After the war, he was actively involved in the life of the countryside, sharing his experience of Auschwitz during his lectures in schools. We know a lot about how he was regarded in his community. Neighbors and family knew about his non-normativity, but it was not a reason for rejection or persecution, both in peace and war. He would always wear rain boots and jeans, and he would collect textiles of many kinds with the dream of becoming a tailor. He is said to have informally adopted a child, here represented through a painting by Władysław Ślewiński titled Sierota z Poronina (Orphan from Poronin). Another one of his peculiar interests was chiromancy, the art of reading one’s future on the palm of their hand. He died at the age of ninety, leaving behind a collection of photographs and family documents, which Joanna Ostrowska bought from his neighbor in 2022. Souvenirs of a non- heteronormative episode appeared in the archive, like a film showing men kissing. Such unabashed documentation of queer love is quite difficult to find before 1945.

Verso: Dirk Willems, a Dutch Anabaptist• martyr, saves his pursuer in this etching from the Martyrs Mirror, 1685.