Maria Kuncewiczowa’s cape

To this day, residents of Kazimierz Dolny remember Maria Kuncewiczowa as a well-dressed, elegant woman. Mrs Maria’s wardrobe used to contain mink fur coats and her jewellery box was filled with classic and exotic trinkets. The writer was gifted many of the original jewellery pieces by her son, Witold. Very few original items of clothing that belonged to Maria Kuncewiczowa are left in the museum. The writer gave most of them away to her family, loved ones and friends. This was also the case with her brown cape with a silver clasp. She wore it stylishly until the end of her life. After the writer’s death, the cape was given to Barbara Mazurkiewicz, the wife of a long-term head of the Press House. Years later, the cape returned to the exhibition. It is also an item with symbolic meaning. The cape — a traveller’s outfit — illustrates the wartime fate not only of the Kuncewicz family, but also of Antoni Słonimski, Julian Tuwim or Kazimierz Wierzyński. All of them set out from Kazimierz Dolny into the unknown.