A reconstructed monument in the courtyard of the Ossolineum in Wrocław, commemorating the pupils and teachers of St Matthias Grammar School who fell in the war.
The Monument to the Victims of the First World War stands in the courtyard of the Ossolineum in Wrocław, in Śródmieście, and commemorates the pupils and teachers of the former St Matthias Grammar School who fell in the war.
The monument was designed by sculptor Theodor von Gosen and unveiled on 6 November 1922 in honour of the pupils and teachers of St Matthias Grammar School who fell during the First World War. It takes the form of a four-sided obelisk, widening towards the top, crowned with a bronze figure of the Risen Christ. The sandstone obelisk bears 183 names - German, Polish and Jewish - and a German dedication from the school to its fallen sons.
After 1945 the monument disappeared. It was not until 2003, during the renovation of the Ossolineum, that the obelisk itself was dug up in the courtyard, and the crowning piece - a figure of Christ weighing about 40 kilograms and 90 centimetres tall - was found in a storeroom of St Matthias' Church. The initiator of the monument's reconstruction was Adolf Juzwenko, then director of the Ossolineum. The reconstructed monument was unveiled on 18 November 2007, and the ceremony was attended among others by Archbishop Marian Gołębiewski and historian Norman Davies.
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