Janusz Kobyliński’s Album

A remarkable artifact has recently been added to the collections of the Warsaw Rising Museum – the personal photo album of Janusz Kobyliński, known by his wartime nickname 'Gong'.

It contains 230 photographs, some taken by “Gong” himself, the rest by his family members and friends. The album’s value is enhanced by Janusz Kobyliński’s own hand-drawn illustrations with captions that reveal his keen observational skills and sense of humor.

The album is a record of the final few years before the outbreak of World War II. It documents both the everyday life of students at the prestigious Mikołaj Rej High School in Warsaw (which Kobyliński attended) and special events – the matriculation ball, sailing regattas in Sweden, and compulsory military training. It also captures the students’ stay at the suburban “Rejówka” facility, most likely preparing them for their final exams. Additionally, we can see the Kobyliński family’s holidays – a wealthy intelligentsia family with landed gentry traditions – spent on their estates. Together, these images create a panorama of the last years before the war, seen largely through the eyes of young people on the threshold of adulthood.

The family had strong patriotic traditions. “Gong’s” father, Dr. Chwalisław Kobyliński, was called up to the Polish Army as a doctor in November 1918. Four years later, during the May Coup, he helped organize a medical aid point at 9 Mazowiecka Street. Like his son, he took part in the Warsaw Rising as a member of the medical staff at the sanitary point at 34 Nowogrodzka Street, and after its evacuation on 20 August 1944, as a doctor in the insurgent hospital in Górce (Młociny district).

The author of the album passed his matriculation exam in 1938. After the outbreak of war, he joined the Polish underground – initially in the Gray Ranks (Szare Szeregi), and later, after intensive officer training, became an instructor on shooting courses organized in the woods of Puszcza Mariańska near Żyrardów for soldiers of the Kedyw unit of the Home Army’s High Command.

As an excellent marksman, he was part of the security group during an operation to carry out a death sentence on a Gestapo officer, SS-Rottenführer Alfred Milke. The operation took an unexpected turn: by mistake, a higher-ranking SS officer – Obersturmführer, head of a department in the office of the Commander of the Security Police and SD in the Warsaw District – became the victim of the attack. Janusz Kobyliński himself was wounded in the lung. 

From the summer of 1944, “Gong” served in the 3rd Company of the “Parasol” Battalion. After the Uprising broke out, he failed to reach his unit’s assembly point and joined the 1st “Stefan” Company of the “Rum” Assault Battalion, fighting in the Northern Downtown (Śródmieście Północne) district. He was killed under the rubble on Szpitalna Street on 4 September 1944.