The take over and liquidation of the charity organization Caritas, both in Poland and in the former province of Wroclaw, lasted for several years after the end of World War II. The consistent cooperation of Caritas with the communist authorities was amicable for a period of approximately three years after the war. It began changing when the Caritas organization started being more and more active in many spheres of charitable work. The communist authorities began to see their main ideological opponent in the Church, which interacted with the society through its charity work, in a competitive way. Thus, in the years 1948–1949, the communist authorities gradually took over the facilities belonging to the ecclesiastical organization, suspended operations of its various branches (e.g. Zgorzelec), or completely refused the allocation of premises (e.g. Oleśnica). Inspections of Caritas, which were carried out at the time, were biased with the aim of demonstrating the alleged irregularities, manipulations and abuses within this organization (e.g. Wrocław, Kamienna Góra, Lubawka, Chełmsk Śląski). The policy of the communist authorities, aiming to completely eliminate the Church’s influence on the society, led to the discontinuation of development of the Church activities and, on 23 January 1950, the authorities definitively took over the charity Caritas from the Church, establishing its coercive management. Since that time, the Catholic organization — Caritas has become the Caritas Catholic Association under the full jurisdiction of the Polish People’s Republic authorities.
The article presents the matter of an employee dispute between the former head of the agricultural directorate of the Ordynacja (landed property in fideicommis) in Przeworsk (Polish Galicia), Stanisław Trzeciak, and the property management, which was under the control of the Lubomirski family. In 1933, the director was dismissed from his position, which was justified by his offensive behavior towards the compulsory administrator appointed on the estate. In the face of this, the employee obtained a legal opinion signed by the leading civilians of that time – (prof. Jagiellonian University, Stanisław Gołąb, and dr. Zygmunt Wusatowski), in which the illegality of immediate termination of the employment contract was proved on the basis of applicable regulations (both Austrian and Polish), case law and the guidelines of doctrine. Then S. Trzeciak sent a letter to the owner of Ordynacja Przeworsk, Andrzej Lubomirski with a detailed description of the case and his claims. This case of interwar employee relations is even more interesting, because they occurred in the specific conditions of fideicommis, which had an impact on the course and end of the dispute.
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