Picturesque Świdermajers, pine forests, dunes, rivers and famous pre-war spas and guesthouses. In a word: summer resort. As part of an open-air exhibition under this very title, the History Meeting House, together with Agnieszka Kowalska, is recalling the history of the most popular summer resorts of the interwar period near Warsaw on the Otwock line. The exhibition will be on display in Fr Jan Twardowski's square ...

The Otwock line is a railway line, in fact two running parallel to each other, a broad gauge and a narrow gauge. It was these that caused the dynamic development of the area in the first half of the 20th century. And it was here that the inhabitants and residents of Warsaw came to rest in the pine forests, on the banks of the Świder and the Vistula, for treatment of lung diseases and neuroses.

Otwock, due to its microclimate, developed mainly as a health resort. As early as 1890, at Otwocka Street (now Kościuszki Street), a bathing establishment was opened, which in 1893 functioned under the name "Dr Geisler's Sanatorium in Otwock". - "a year-round, lowland tuberculosis sanatorium on a European level". Other towns such as Falenica and Michalin were alive with summer visitors, who hiked in the forests, along the current of the Świder, canoed down it, sailed down the Vistula and rested on the vast beaches.

As Agnieszka Kowalska, curator and author of the exhibition, says: "We are looking for a breath of fresh air close to the city, contact with nature, silence, regeneration after struggling with the virus. Hence our idea to return to the line just now. This will be helped by the unusual catalogue for this exhibition Letnisko. A subjective guide to the Otwock Line. And the introduction will be the exhibition itself, where you will see the history of the railway, the architecture, the most famous sanatoriums, boarding houses and villas (and what remains of them today), how nature was used and fun was had on the line."

In addition, the author of the exhibition recalls the Jewish inhabitants and residents of this multicultural area. She also introduces several families who have preserved valuable memorabilia from the 1920s and 1930s, and talks about places such as the Military Sanatorium, the Gurewicz Guesthouse (now the New Gurewicz), the Otwock Casino, the Zofiówka, the Medema Sanatorium and Janusz Korczak's Rozyczka. Visitors will find out what the summer residents and patients lived on, see the beautiful Świdermajer houses and learn about their history, and feel the atmosphere of a pre-war summer resort. The exhibition consists of posters and graphics from the time, archival and contemporary photographs as well as photos from family albums, extracts from memoirs and newspaper articles. The whole is complemented by a calendar with the most important dates for the Otwock line.