The School's Banner
In the interwar period, the present Staszic High School's banner was a banner of the Staszic Gymnasium and later also the Staszic Liceum. It was founded in 1922 and it was designed by the contemporary drawing teacher, professor Feliks Rosiński, who was a known artist and painter. Starting from 1922, he was also a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts for 40 years.
The history of the banner until the start of World War II is not much different than those of other high school banners. After the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the German conquest of Warsaw, high schools were shut down and the banner was hidden in the basement of the school building on 6 Noakowski Street, which was later turned into a military hospital by the Germans.
During the Warsaw Uprising, Noakowski Street was captured by the insurrectionists and, together with the Warsaw University of Technology, formed the frontline. The banner was found after almost five years of hiding and was used as a national symbol by the fighters, because of its white eagle on a red background image. It was used during important events and ceremonies, such as military briefings, field devotions, funerals and the Feast of the Soldier on 15 August.
After the capitulation of the Uprising one of nurses took the banner and gave it to a Home Army lieutenant Władysław Olejniczak, who was the leader of one of the squads defending Noakowski Street. Heavily wounded Olejniczak was captured by the Germans in a field hospital and was transported to a prisoner-of-war camp in Zeitheim, Saxony, taking the banner with him.
There, in harsh conditions of prison conspiracy, the School's banner was still used during numerous ceremonies organized by the insurrectionists.
After the war, lieutenant Olejniczak returned to Warsaw with the banner and for the next few years kept it at home. Only after learning from a newspaper that the graduates of the Staszic Gymnasium and Liceum were organizing their first reunion in 1959, he gave them the banner. It was renovated and officially handed down to the graduates on their second reunion in 1964. The banner was greeted with great joy and its arrival touched the former students deeply, because they thought it had been burnt by the Germans along with the school building.
Because the Staszic High School was closed by the Ministry of Education in 1950, the banner was handed over to the Staszic Primary School located in the rebuilt school building. After that school was closed as well, it was given to the Museum of Warsaw where it received the needed maintenance.
After 30 years of the graduates' work to reactivate the Staszic High School, the students of the Klement Gottwald High School tried changing its patron, following political changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The graduates proposed giving the School the patronage of Stanisław Staszic, which was accepted by the School's Staff and approved in a student referendum.
On 4 April 1990 the Warsaw Chief Education Officer gave the XIV General Liceum the name and patronage of Stanisław Staszic.
On Teachers' Day, 13 October 1990, the School officially changed its patron and received the original banner from the graduates.
And thus came true the words of the School's monograph from 1988 published by the State Publishing Institute:
... in case of realisation of the graduates' still going dreams of reactivating the Staszic High School - our banner, as a visible symbol of connection between the past and the future, could leave the cozy walls of the Museum of Warsaw and rest in a high school that continues the tradition of the School, among youth that our great Patron would lead forever.