WARSAW — For four months, I tried to determine what had happened to one of the largest purchases ever made by Poland’s National Library: in 2008, it purchased for almost PLN 11 million the archive of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, which contains her letters to Pope John Paul II over many years.
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It all started with an email. A reader, who asked to remain anonymous, noted that the media had covered the purchase and questioned its whereabouts, but then the matter went quiet: “The letters have not been compiled. Nobody has access to them. Why has the matter been kept secret for so many years?”
In fact, there is no trace of Tymieniecka’s archive in the library’s online catalog.
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, born in Marianowo, Poland 1923, was a recognized philosopher, specializing in phenomenology. She studied in Krakow, Freiburg and Paris before eventually immigrating to the United States, where she spent much of her life. She married an economist, with whom she had three children.
Waiting for disinfection
Tymieniecka’s letters should be located in the National Library’s Manuscript Department. In January, I called the department’s manager, Anna Romaniuk. She said that officially, the letters are kept there and that all Polish citizens have access to collection, but the letters I asked about are in conservation and, therefore, not available.
The letters were sent to conservation once they arrived at the library, she said, stressing that the situation is not unusual: when such documents arrive at the library, they are disinfected in a special chamber to eliminate all microorganisms on the surface of the paper in an effort to extend its life. Then, they are sent for conservation work or for processing.
The queue of documents awaiting conservation is long, and the number of employees is limited. Moreover, the letters of Tymieniecka and John Paul II are not compiled, so they are not in the catalog.
Romaniuk asked for understanding about the challenges National Library specialists sometimes face. This year, for example, a catalog of manuscripts in German that came to the library in 1946 is to be published. But so far, no specialists have been willing to undertake the task of identifying those materials.
The conservation of materials is handled by the Institute for the Conservation of Library Collections, a specialized unit of the National Library, which is managed by Justyna Król-Próba. I asked Król-Próba about the letters of Tymieniecka and John Paul II, and got a surprising answer: “These lists were never submitted for conservation,” he said.
The BBC report
The letters were first revealed to the public in a 2016 BBC report “Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II.” In it, journalist Edward Stourton reconstructs the long relationship between Tymieniecka and John Paul Ii, who met in 1973, when the Pope, then known as Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, was the Metropolitan Archbishop of Krakow. Tymieniecka read his work “Person and Act” in the field of Christian anthropology, was impressed by it and flew to Poland to meet him. This was the beginning of a friendship.
The philosopher decided to get Wojtyła’s book published in the West. She took care of its editing; there were more meetings and letters. Some of the letters were probably transmitted through informal channels or by trusted people, Stourton notes, because, at the time, the communist secret service was interested in the Krakow hierarchy.
Their relationship developed. Tymieniecka flew to Poland. They spent free time together, went skiing and kayaking. In the letters they discussed his book, philosophy — which fascinated them both — God, the Christian concept of love, and other issues.
Malinowski said she believes that Tymieniecka was in love with Wojtyla.
Marsha Malinowski, an American expert on rare manuscripts, helped Tymieniecka sell her collection and became thoroughly familiar with her letters. Malinowski said she believes that Tymieniecka was in love with Wojtyla and that this is reflected in the letters.
In his report, Stourton quotes one of Tymieniecka’s “love letters” from 1975, in which she writes about her desire to be in Wojtyła’s arms and apologizes for still not being able to control her feelings. Asked by the BBC, the National Library denied that such a manuscript existed.
The future pope’s response, quoted by the BBC, was more restrained and ambiguous. He gave Tymieniecka his scapular, two pieces of cloth with the image of the Virgin Mary, which he wore on his chest for years, an intimate item he received from his father. Stourton noted that there is no suggestion that the future pope break his vow of celibacy.
An obvious paradox
A former employee of the National Library showed me fragments of Wojtyła’s letters to Tymieniecka. In March 1976, the cardinal wrote: “Don’t say that you are alone and unnecessary. I have already written to you about what a gift means. When God gives man to man, he always gives him something. I know, almost from the first meeting, that God gave you to me and gave you to me. I know this not through some imposed construction, but on the basis of my inner voice, which is also the voice of my heart. On this basis, I accept you and everyone and everything connected with you — accept you before God, constantly seeking His light and help in order to be able to give you what is truly good for you (using Saint Hildebrand’s formula).”
In May 1981, after the attempted assassination of John Paul II, Tymieniecka was one of the few people allowed to see him while he was recovering in the hospital. Their correspondence continued until the end of his life, the last time she saw him was just before his death. Tymieniecka died in 2014.
The statements made in the media have no basis in the content of the letters.
Stourton explained the origin of his BBC report in an email: In the 1990s, he made a documentary about the role of John Paul II in the fall of communism, and then published his biography. Tymieniecka’s name came up once or twice during his research. Then one of his contacts informed him about the sale of her letters.
The National Library never confirmed to Stourton that it had Tymieniecka’s letters — only those written by Wojtyła and then John Paul II. And no National Library employees were interviewed in the report.
In his BBC report, Stourton noted an obvious paradox. Generally, when such an important archive arrives at a library, it is made public; Tymieniecka’s letters, meanwhile, have disappeared.
Following the 2016 report and subsequent international media coverage, the National Library issued a statement, saying: “The statements made in the media have no basis in the content of the letters of John Paul II to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka which are in the National Library of Poland’s archives. The knowledge described is widely known and presented in many publications.”
Not the only materials
But the letters with Tymieniecka are not the only ones National Library has that relate to Wojtyła. As I established in April 2017, it has also purchased items from the archive of Irena Kinaszewska’s, a secretary in the Krakow office of Tygodnik Powszechny Polish Roman Catholic weekly magazine, where Wojtyła had worked.
In 1983, Kinaszewska was a victim of a Security Service operation that unsuccessfully attempted to make her admit to having had close relationship with the future pope. The National Library paid three of Kinaszewska’s heirs a total of PLN 249,000 for documents from her archive. But those are not included in the library catalog.
At the end of April, I called Romaniuk, manager of the Manuscript Department, again. She said that the letters between Tymieniecka and John Paul II, which I have asked about so many times, will be made available in the fall.
When I ask about the reason for purchasing Kinaszewska’s documents, Romaniuk said that the answer was obvious. What matters is the authorship of the manuscripts, what was written by who, to whom, and when. The purchase was based on the rank and weight of these materials.
And when will they be available?
As was the case of Tymieniecka’s letters, Romaniuk explained, Kinaszewska’s archive is waiting to be disinfected.
