The Warsaw Mint during the war and German occupation 1939-1944
In September 1939, during the intensive bombing of the Warsaw district of Praga, the National Mint, since 1924 having its seat at 18 Markowska Street, was partly destroyed.
According to official German data, it was the first time the numismatic collection of the Mint, which before September 1939 comprised approx. 26,000 items, was affected. After the capitulation of Warsaw and the establishment of the General Government by Germans, the Mint received an official German name: STAATLICHE MÜNZE DES GENERALGOUVERNEMENTS, although a plate with a Polish inscription MENNICA PAŃSTWOWA (NATIONAL MINT) was on the building for a long time. Germans kept the Polish management and team, who had to work under the direction of German commissioners residing at the Polish Security Printing Works in Sanguszki Street. During the occupation, both Polish institutions operated under one German management. In the first quarter of 1940, the damaged buildings of the Mint were reconstructed and in the second half of 1940 the Mint could start the production of coins.
In the years 1941-1944, the Mint struck zinc coins of 1, 5, 10 and 20 groszy on the occupier’s account, using the stamps from years 1923 and 1939, with the Polish Eagle and an inscription “Republic of Poland”. 131,433,000 coins with face value of PLN 13,327,790 were struck in total. 271 tones of zinc were used to this end. What is more, during the occupation, the Mint produced metal stamps with a swastika for German authorities and institutions in the General Government. Stamps of Polish institutions, used by the authorities of the Polish underground movement in order to legalize documents, were also produced in conspiracy. According to Władysław Terlecki’s account, “various things happened at the Mint during the occupation, most of which will unfortunately remain a mystery forever”. Several employees of the Mint lost their lives or were sent to concentration camps for their work in the underground. In the first half of 1940, Germans confiscated and took the Mint’s numismatic collections to Germany. Only approximately 10% of the most valuable exhibits from a large collection gathered in the interwar period was saved. Owing to the courage of Mint employees, curator Władysław Terlecki and Mieczysława Kizewetter, they managed to be taken from the Mint. The 67th Warsaw Girl Scouting Troop handled the transport of coins in small packets, taking them from place to place in Warsaw. The saved collection was buried on a premises at 7 Byczyńska Street in Grochów, where it was looked after by Anna Szemiothowa, curator of the Numismatic Cabinet at the National Museum in Warsaw, who lived there. In 1946, curator Władysław Terlecki, acting Director of the Mint since August 1946, took the saved exhibits out of the hiding place. The Ministry of Treasury handed the collection he had saved with great courage and putting his own life at risk to the National Museum. Throughout the occupation, the Mint used its symbol from before the war - the Kościesza armorial. It is placed on a plaque decorating the box and in the edges of the obverse and reverse of the coin. On the obverse and reverse of the coin there is the image of a ducat from 1766, issued by Stanisław August Poniatowski, founder of the Mint, in the year of its opening. It is the image of the coin Władysław Terlecki saved from being taken away by the occupier. The German occupation resulted in the destruction of both Mint’s numismatic collections and the plant itself. The Mint shared the fate of the capital and on 12th September 1944, two days before the Soviet army entered Praga, it was blown up by the retreating German army. The essential concept and graphic design of the coin as well as box fittings were developed by Tomasz Bylicki, curator of the Mint’s Numismatic Cabinet in the years 1992-2002, who in 1965, as a high school student, was introduced into the secrets of numismatics and the history of the Mint by Władysław Terlecki. Plaster models of the coin and box fittings were made by Anna Beata Wątróbska-Wdowiarska, a sculptor and a medal-making artist, graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (1987), winner of state and international medallic art contests. Both the designer’s and the medal-making artist’s signatures are placed on the obverse of the coin. The coin was struck in January 2010 by the Mint of Poland, which continued the tradition of King Stanisław’s mint and National Mint, in commemoration of the Mint’s operation during the war and German occupation 1939-1944, to pay homage to Mint employees murdered and tormented for Poland in Nazi places of torture, and to honor the daring action of saving numismatic collection by curator Władysław Terlecki, on its 70th anniversary.
