"When will you be able to leave Switzerland?" - "Never." New facts revealed about the last period of Magdalena Radziwill's life

"Maria Magdalena Radziwill (1861-1945): 'But because I love you.'" This phrase was published by the Fribourg magazine La Liberté in 1945. This is how the Countess responded when people asked about the reason for her kindness. Which, by the way, is documented – Maria periodically donated money to the Fribourg Aid Bureau and Night Shelter, writes Andrei Kalaur.

"I knew almost nothing about Radziwill's Swiss period, which was more than 10 years of her life! It seemed as if she lived in a monastery or was cared for by Dominican sisters in a shelter, having become completely impoverished."

Now I can confidently say that there are no grounds to believe this. A separate file, CH AEF DPc Etrangers 16616, concerning Magdalena Radziwill, is kept in the State Archive of Fribourg; to study it, one must travel to Switzerland. I managed to research the sources.

Павялічыць

Maria did not move to Fribourg immediately. She first moved from Lithuania, of which she was a citizen, to Germany in 1923. From there began her journey through Switzerland: in 1930 she lived in a hotel in Davos; in 1931 – in Bern and Zermatt, at Villa Frey; in 1932-1933 – in Lausanne, at Zimmermann's guesthouse; in 1933-1934 – in Bern, at the Hotel Montana.

The choice of Fribourg seemed no coincidence — the capital of a Catholic canton (Radziwill was a devout Catholic), and the local university traditionally attracted Lithuanians (whom she financially supported). But even here she did not plan to stay long; she was moving to Danzig. In 1935, she settled into the private guesthouse Sainte-Elisabeth (thinking it was only for a year).

Павялічыць

Thanks to the sources, her close circle can be reconstructed — Baroness Mathilde de Planitz (they shared a guesthouse), Catholic priest, illustrator, and writer Czeslaw Rewuski (1893-1983), Fribourg University professor Prince Maximilian of Saxony (who worked on the topic of the union), Lithuanian politicians, and interned military personnel from a Polish camp.

In 1937, Stanisław Radziwiłł (1914-1976) — a diplomat and airline director — defended his dissertation "Ukrainians during the War" in Fribourg (they probably met). In one article, she was even mentioned as an embassy attaché.

Radziwill became relatively impoverished. She received a lifelong annuity of 20,000 francs per year from her daughter. It should be understood that her daughter — Maria Czartoryska and her husband Adam Czartoryski owned, for example, the Ojców resort, and the famous Hôtel Lambert in Paris. Radziwill also had 18,000 francs in three Swiss accounts. Although her income decreased due to the war — in 1939 she received 7,500 francs — this still remained a large sum (equivalent to the annual salary of a manager in Geneva in 1940).

In documents, she indicated Belarus as her country of origin; she emphasized that she had a perfect command of French, English, and Polish, and knew Russian and German only passably. Answering the question of why she left her country of origin, she stated: "The Bolsheviks confiscated all my lands, and I was threatened with murder."

From 1940, the Countess lived with a foreigner's passport, which had to be renewed every year. When the Soviets occupied Lithuania, she was forced to pay the canton a deposit of 2,000 francs (as a guarantee that she had funds).

"When will you be able to leave Switzerland?" - "Never, considering my age and the impossibility of returning to my country."

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