Thanks to Marcin Dziedzic, Małgorzata Koszelew and Arkadiusz Szajner touched the past. As part of the Teraz ’44 project, they found themselves in an insurgent photo alongside their relatives. Małgorzata rests her hand on the shoulder of her great-aunt Izabela Wilbik, (code name: “Iza”). Photographer Joachim Joachimczyk (code name: “Joachim”) captured the smile of the 16-year-old Iza, resting after evacuation through sewers from Warsaw’s Old Town on 1 September 1944, in the company of rifleman Tadeusz Roman (code name: “Kowalski”) and Jan Welt (code name: “Ulatowski”). Taken in a backyard of a house on Warecka Street, the photo is like a meeting with ghosts. Małgorzata Koszelew has never seen her pretty relative, who died shortly after the evacuation during the defence of Czerniaków (a district of Warsaw). And yet Koszelew says she has always known her great-aunt Izabela whose picture stood prominently displayed in her grandmother’s apartment and stories about Iza still abound in the family. 

Like Małgorzata Koszelew, Arkadiusz Szajner was a bit uneasy when Marcin Dziedzic, the author of collages in Teraz ’44, suggested that he should pose as if resting his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. In a photo dated 20 September 1944, senior rifleman Zdzisław Orzechowski (code name: “Gnome”) is wielding a Schmeisser and wearing a coat captured from the enemy. In the insurgent parlance, such clothes were said to be “still smelling of Germans.” Bogdan Borycki (code name: “Nowik”) is standing next to him on Bracka Street in front of the Jabłkowskis’ department store. In today’s version of the picture, Arkadiusz Szajner is accompanying his grandfather together with his wife Halina and sons Olgierd and Michał. “All the photos from the book exude magic because you can feel the spirits of the insurgents. But when it comes to these two, I allowed myself absolute magic. And people liked it. I asked them on Facebook to decide which photo should make it into the book, and they chose both,” Marcin Dziedzic tells Polska.pl.

A Polish studies graduate, journalist and slogans specialist, Dziedzic has worked on Teraz ’44 for two years. He began by posting online collages that combined Warsaw Uprising photos with scenes of modern life. He would superimpose modern-day buildings on black and white scenes of ruined Warsaw with cars and people talking on their mobiles and carrying groceries. A white Porsche parks in front of the ruins, while a city bus and a bike pass by.

Dziedzic knew he wasn’t a pioneer. Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, a Dutch historical consultant, had a similar idea before. As part of the Ghost of War project, she overlaid pictures of contemporary Dutch cities on photos of German soldiers. The same method was applied by the Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov. Yet, both projects lacked precision, a feature that’s so important to Dziedzic. Better results were achieved in the City of Phoenix, a Polish black and white project that only juxtaposed places – old ruins – and new buildings. Meanwhile, Marcin Dziedzic wanted his collages to show people – Warsaw Uprising heroes and its present-day inhabitants.

He discussed his ideas with the Warsaw Rising Museum’s Director Jan Ołdakowski, who guaranteed him access to the museum’s digital collections, Fototeka. Dziedzic could also tap into the museum staff’s expertise. He picked 44 photos and set out into the city. “I wanted to turn two worlds – one from the Warsaw Uprising days, the other modern – into one. I aimed at perfection or close to perfection. The way I tried to achieve this was by taking photographs from the same angle that the originals had been shoot,” he tells Polska.pl. Having tried repeatedly to capture the exact time of the day, he finally opted for a mobile app that showed the time a picture was taken 71 years ago using the angle of the sunrays. Now he only had to wait for the right weather conditions. “All it takes is astronomy, geography, and a bit of maths. I was running around the city with a camera, looking into my plan and trying to get the right shot,” he recounts.