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Introduction

Ersatz Museum
Poland

History 1929-1939
Buildings 1929-1939
Joseph Jacobovski
Exhibition Guide 1936
Exhibitions 1929-1938

Ersatz Museum
England

History 1959-1973
Buildings 1959-1973
Displays 1959-1969

Contact and Links
  

Joseph Jacobovski and colleagues.
There remains very few details about Jacobovski's personal life and only a handful photographs exist of this enigmatic man. He was shy, introverted and very much an academic and left the 'front of house' management of the museum to his friend Manfred Sigler. A sister, Bronya, died young and his mother died at just 49 in 1919. His father was a wealthy builder and owned many properties in several towns as well as in Grudziadz. all of which Jacbovski sold off when he inherited his estate on his fathers death in 1927.
Jacobovski originally studied Natural Science at Jagiellonian University, in Krakow and continued this and his own research for over nearly 10 years supplementing an annual allowance from his father with teaching. In 1922, aged just 32 he was awarded a Professorship of Natural Sciences at Warsaw University, but his unusual approach to the subject was often frowned upon by his superiors and two years later he returned to Krakow to become Fellow of Academy of Science. Over this period he published many papers and research documents ranging from genetics and anatomy to historical studies and mythology and was a member of several Polish and European scientific societies and institutions. Even taking into account the destruction and loss of many photographs due to the war, it seems Jacobovski disliked having his photograph taken and the few images we have of him come from group photographs taken at the institution's conferences and meetings.


Jacobovski (circled) at the conference of the Society of Naturalists. Paris 1920



Jacobovski at the Warsaw Institute of the Polish League Scientists, April 1929.


The last known photograph of Jacobovski
- with Manfreds Sigler's fiance Hilda Froem (and Malek Kovich ?) taken early 1939.

Manfred Sigler
This photograph is dated 1927. Son of Pietre Sigler and friend and assistant to Jacobovski, Manfred had a great influence on the collection and the museum itself. After inheriting his fathers collection of natural oddities he donated them to form part of the first exhibits shown at the Ersatz Museum.
Born in the small village Krokocice in 1891, he moved with his family to Krakow in 1901. He studied Botany at university and became well respected in the field, also being awarded a professorship and later became head researcher in Krakow Botanical Gardens. He was much more out going than his friend Jacobovski and therefore often took on the role of representing the Ersatz to both the academic world and the public a like, holding special exhibitions and private tours of the collection.
However his private life was full of tragedy. He was said to be distraught at his fathers mysterious death in 1919 and spent much time trying to clear his name, never believing him to be a spy as accused. Following the death of father his mother committed suicide. He was also engaged to be married three times, His first fiance Marta dying of Diphtheria in 1915, his second Alenka Kowalak died from a fall in 1925 and the war intervened before allowing him to marry German actress Hilda Froem (pictured above). Hilda returned to Germany and died in Berlin in 1945. Like Jacobovski, the actual fate of Manfred is unknown the strongest evidence being the name 'Manfred Sigler' with some details that corresponded closely to his on a warrent and death list of 12 Polish resistance members arrested in Lodz, Poland. March 1940 and all subsequently shot by the Nazis.


Pietre Sigler
Pietre, Manfreds father, was an renowned Prussian born explorer with an interest collecting natural oddities on his travels. Moving to Krakow in 1901, he decided to house and display these in the rooms of own home and called it the 'Sircum'. As this grew more popular he moved it to larger premises in Batacka, where it was opened to the public twice a week for a small admittance fee. To some it was purely a 'freak show' as many of the exhibits featured abnormal animal births and the like. In 1919, during the Polish-Soviet War, Sigler was arrested in eastern Poland by Red Army troops, supposedly for espionage and later executed, the exact circumstances never properly explained. Jacobovski met Siglers' son Manfred at university and so visited the Sircum on many occasion. He was so influenced by its content that it changed the direction of his studies. Manfred, inherited the entire collection and later gave it to Jacobovski to establish his own museum.


(photo-image reproduced by kind permission of TC Polska)
Pietre Sigler (second left) with members of the Polish branch of The Explorers Society at its inauguration in Warsaw in 1911. (Henryk Arctowski the famed Antartic explorer is third from the left),


(Photo-image reproduced by kind permission of TC Polska)
Pietre Sigler (left) with Almond Spritzer (German writer) and Stanislaw Kalivich (Polish scientist) in 1914.

Miriam Mandalov (photo by permissions of J.Krenenko)
Although Jacobovski never married. it is known he had a long association and most probably an on-going affair with the Russian born Miriam Mandalov, who throughout that time remained married to her husband, the Marxist philosopher Zigorgy Mandalov. With Jacobovski she travelled Europe on museum expeditions and she was very involved with the collection itself. This caused quite a scandal, especially when it was rumoured that she had temporarily moved into Jacobovskis apartments, staying there for several months at a time between 1935 and 1938. In 1939 it seems Zigorgy could not tolerate the situation any further and began proceedings for divorce citing Jacobovski as co-respondent. At the outbreak of war Miriam returned to Russia and to Zigorgy, who joined Red Army and was killed in 1944. Miriam herself survived the war and died a widow in 1962. Her writings and letters are now owned by her niece, Alzbeta Komerovskaia but have never been released or published and may contain some intimate and first hand insights into both Jacobovski and the museum collection itself.