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  Surveillance photos of pilgrims at the Marian apparition site in Zabłudów

  Initiated on 13 May 1965 by Jadwiga Jakubowska, the miracle of Zabłudów met with a growing social response in June and July. Despite the lack of any media coverage of the miracle, thousands of pilgrims from all over the country come to Zabłudów. The plan of their stay usually included two points. The first was to visit the Jakubowski family’s property in order to meet or at least see Jadwiga Jakubowska, a girl who saw the Marian apparition. The second point, for the pilgrims, was the miraculous meadow where the apparitions and other miraculous events occurred. There, on Sunday, 30 May, a riot took place when riot police attacked the people, waiting for the next apparition, with truncheons and tear gas. These actions were ineffective and the police units had to withdraw. The pilgrims treated this fact as a new miracle, and it made the miracle of Zabłudów famous throughout Poland. Pilgrims who came to the miraculous meadow in June and early July prayed, sang Marian hymns and talked about other miracles. The phrase “Our Lady of Zabłudów” appeared in litanies. They often left different votive offerings, such as flowers, ceremonial towels, candles and rosaries. People collected water from a dug pit, which was treated as a spring, and soil, which were considered to have miraculous curative properties. With the beginning of the quarantine of Zabłudów, whose real aim was to eradicate the miracle, access to the miraculous meadow was forbidden, guarded by a 24-hour police post. Pilgrims who tried to break through to the site of the Marian apparition were punished with a typhoid vaccination and a fine. Among the pilgrims in the miraculous meadow, there were also undercover secret police officers. Their task was to observe the behaviour of the people who came there, eavesdropping on conversations and taking surveillance photos, which were then entered into a special album. The presented photographs of pilgrims come from this album. The caption under the top photo reads: “A woman is hanging rosary on cross. Date 11.VII.1965”. The caption under the bottom photo reads, “A woman is collecting soil from the alleged ‘miracle’ site. Date 11.VII.1965”.
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  Surveillance photos of Jadwiga Jakubowska, the Zabłudów visionary

  The photographs show a 14-year-old girl, Jadwiga Jakubowska, who saw the Marian apparition on 13 May 1965. The apparition, which took place on a meadow near Zabłudów, a small town in north-eastern Poland, led in the following months to a series of events known as the miracle of Zabłudów. It was one of the most significant miraculous phenomena during the Polish People’s Republic era and became particularly famous after the riots of 30 May 1965. Then, on the day of the next announced apparition, thousands of people clashed with the riot police, who tried to disperse the gathered pilgrims by force. As this was also the day of the “election” to the communist parliament of the Polish People’s Republic, the miracle of Zabłudów acquired a political dimension. For this reason, the communist authorities wanted to eradicate it as soon as possible. This was achieved in July 1965 by declaring the quarantine of Zabłudów, blocking the place of the apparition with round the clock police patrols and repressing the Jadwiga Jakubowska’s family and supporters of the miracles. The Polish communist secret police (in the Polish context – the Security Service) played a huge role in the elimination of the miracle. They entangled the Jakubowski family, supporters of the miracles and the local clergy with a network of secret collaborators who kept them informed of the mood and plans of those under surveillance. Furthermore, undercover secret police officers secretly observed the Jakubowski family’s property and the behaviour of pilgrims in the miraculous meadow. During these activities, they took about 300 photos with a hidden camera and some of them were later placed in a special album. The presented photographs of Jadwiga Jakubowska come from this album and have been captioned “Photo No. 1/29, 1/31, and 1/33 shows a ‘miraculous girl’ who was riding a bicycle in her backyard on 4.07.65 at 5.45 pm”.