In the basement of the villa at 13 Piasta Street in Milanówek, in 1924, stood two wooden machines that no one had ever built in Poland before: a device for unreeling silk from cocoons and a hand loom. Both were carved on site, according to the instructions of twenty-three-year-old Henryk Witaczek, who six years earlier had worked as a laborer in a Georgian silk thread factory. Together with his sister Stanisława, he founded the Central Experimental Silk Station there – a company that, in a country without a silk tradition, built a complete chain: from mulberry seedlings, through three thousand peasant farms, to the fabric for the shell of the world's largest stratospheric balloon.
I. TIFLIS: WHERE KNOWLEDGE NOT FOUND IN THE COUNTRY COMES FROM
Henryk Stefan Witaczek was born on May 10, 1901, in Warsaw; his sister Stanisława was born around 1897. Their parents—Stanisław Witaczek and Jadwiga née Bajkowska—were officials of the Warsaw-Vienna Railway. Sericulture was not a coincidence in this family: their great-grandfather Rudolf Gillem was a shareholder of the Silk Joint-Stock Company, founded in Warsaw in 1853, and their mother completed a sericulture course at the Warsaw Beekeeping Museum in 1890. This knowledge lay fallow for two generations; a war was needed for someone to take it up.
In 1915, the family was evacuated to the Caucasus. Henryk spent the years 1915–1921 in Georgia: he finished gymnasium, completed a silkworm breeding course at the State Silk Station in Tiflis, and then went to the Experimental Thread and Fabric Factory as an ordinary worker. His father managed the production department there. Witaczek did not just observe the technology from a visitor's gallery—he worked with it directly, with the machines he would later recreate from memory and wood.
The family returned to Poland in 1921. Three years later, on March 20, 1924, the siblings established the Central Experimental Silk Station (CDSJ) in the "Józefina" villa at Piasta 13. The program was scientific and audaciously broad: research on silkworm breeds in Polish conditions, on raw material and fiber, and on mulberry varieties. In practice, it began with eight rearings of silkworms in the apartment and two wooden machines in the basement. In 1927, the first instructional sericulture course was conducted for 42 students; courses were then held annually until 1951, with a total of 700 people completing them.
In 1928, the cornerstone was laid for the plant at Brzozowa 1 Street; the architect Sosnowski from Lviv's design included a motto carved on the architrave — SCIENCIAE ET LABORI. Above the entrance to the ground-floor "manor house" was placed an emblem serving as the company's programmatic declaration: a silkworm feeding on a mulberry branch. On June 1, 1930, the plant was consecrated in the presence of President Ignacy Mościcki, who on the same day inaugurated the IV Course for Sericulture Instructors.
II. GRENA, MULBERRY, FOUR MOLTS
Silk begins with two things that Poland lacked: silkworm eggs (grena) and mulberry. Grena refers to silkworm eggs, measured in grams. White mulberry is a foreign tree, present in Europe since the 12th century, planted solely to provide food for caterpillars – where mulberry grows, someone planted it and almost certainly raised silkworms nearby. Therefore, silk production cannot be launched on demand – it must be planned years in advance. The station distributed millions of seedlings across the country before collecting its first kilogram of cocoons.
The rearing period is short and brutally seasonal – lasting about five weeks in June and July. Hatching begins when the first leaves appear on the mulberry trees; an average rearing, starting from 20 grams of grena, fits in a single ordinary dwelling room. After that, it's just feeding: a caterpillar from one gram of grena eats about 30 kilograms of leaves throughout its development, so a standard twenty-gram rearing consumes approximately 600 kilograms. Young caterpillars thrive on young leaves – the third leaf from the shoot was picked, not just any random one. During this time, the caterpillar undergoes four molts, each time ceasing to eat for a day and shedding its tight skin; only in the fifth stage does it begin to spin its cocoon.
The thread is produced by spinning glands located under the mouth: the secretion solidifies on contact with air, and the caterpillar, swaying its head in figure-eights, seals itself in a cocoon. This is the moment when craft must interrupt biology – if the cycle were completed naturally, the moth would pierce the cocoon and cut the thread into worthless pieces. The argumentation that the Witaczeks presented in their village lectures was purely arithmetical and therefore effective.
- Lasts 5–6 weeks a year – ends before the real field work begins.
- Occurs in June, during the dead season between sowing and harvest.
- Requires minimal financial outlay – a room, shelves, leaves from one's own tree.
- It is simple and requires no special preparation – taught at the Station's courses.
- Can be carried out by older women and children – work for hands not needed in the fields.
- Provides a raw material sought after on markets worldwide, not a commodity with local sales.
- The raw material does not spoil – dry cocoons last a long time, so the breeder is not dependent on a purchase deadline.
III. FROM COCOON TO RAW SILK: HOT WATER AND A SINGLE THREAD
Cocoons arriving in Milanówek were first subjected to high temperatures – the pupae died, and the cocoons remained intact. This is not cruelty for effect, but a technical requirement: the entire value of a cocoon lies in the fact that the thread is single and unbroken. Dried cocoons can be stored and sorted, and only then put into motion.
Unreeling begins with a bath. The cocoon goes into hot water, which softens the sericin – the protein glue binding the coils. The reeler finds the end of the thread and guides it onto a reel, combining fibers from several cocoons at once, because a single fiber is a few to a dozen micrometers in diameter and nothing can be woven from it alone. From one cocoon, a fiber measured in kilometers is extracted – sources report from 1.5 to 3 kilometers. The raw material balance is ruthless: to produce one kilogram of silk fiber, 3.1 to 4.0 kilograms of dry cocoons must be reeled, and one gram of grena yields 2.5 to 3.5 kilograms of fresh cocoons.
The product of this stage is called greige: raw silk fiber, still stiff, dull, and glued together. It goes to the twisting mill, where threads with various twists are created – tightly twisted organzine for the warp, more loosely twisted tram for the weft. Along the way, the yarn is cleaned and leveled, catching any thickenings, because each of them will appear on the fabric like a scar. All these machines – the reeling machine, the twisting machine, the loom – were first built in Milanówek from wood, according to Henryk Witaczek's instructions. Modern equipment was only purchased in the early 1930s; the photograph "Interior of a silk weaving mill" from 1933, preserved in the Mechanical Documentation Archive, already shows an industrial plant, not a workshop.
IV. DEGUMMING: THREE DEGREES, THREE DIFFERENT FABRICS
Here lies the true secret of the craft, and here is where quality most often diverges. Silk fiber consists of a fibroin core – a scleroprotein composed almost half of glycine, followed by alanine, serine, and tyrosine – coated with sericin, or silk glue. The amount of this glue removed in the chemical bath determines the type of fabric: this is not cosmetic, but a structural decision made before weaving. In Milanówek, it was carried out in three variants.
- Complete degumming – all glue removed. The yarn is soft, flowing, with full luster. Used for dress fabrics and headscarves, anything meant to drape on the body.
- Suplé silk, semi-degummed – part of the sericin remains on the fiber. The yarn is stiffer and distinctly stronger: for upholstery fabrics and anything that needs to withstand friction instead of folding.
- Raw silk, undegummed – fiber in the state it left the cocoon, with all its glue. Maximum strength, zero softness. This yarn was used for technical fabrics.
After degumming, the fibers were bleached and dyed – before the war, in a dye house set up in a pavilion moved to Milanówek from the Warsaw National Exhibition of 1929. Only then did the yarn go to the weaving mill, to simple and Jacquard looms. The difference between them is the difference between weave and pattern: on a simple loom, the pattern comes from the colors and weave of the warp and weft; on a Jacquard loom, the Jacquard machine automatically controls groups of individual warp threads according to a program encoded on perforated cards. Each pattern had its card record, known as a pattern card; employees jokingly called this collection of cards a library, and it was in fact the complete source code of everything ever woven in Milanówek.
Stanisława Witaczkówna, a biologist by education and a painter by passion, oversaw the design – throughout the interwar period and after the war, until nationalization. Jacquard patterns were designed by Wacław Adamski, a weaver, later the weaving mill master. The output was documented in sample books: fabric fragments were glued to cards, next to which the series and number were written, and sometimes a technical description – which yarn was used for the warp, which for the weft. Remnants of this documentation survive: two sample books, for tie and shirt fabrics. From scraps that were not worth wasting, Stanisława invented pocket squares – twenty-some centimeter squares, hand-hemmed, sold as "lucky handkerchiefs."
V. 2400 FACILITIES AND FOUR MINISTRIES
The model was simple and quantifiable: distribute mulberry seedlings and silkworm eggs, teach breeding, purchase cocoons, process them on-site. In the 1930s, the number of breeding facilities in Poland was estimated at 2400, and just before the war, the Station collaborated with approximately three thousand breeders. The company was divided into five departments: experimental, propaganda and training, breeding, production, and raw material procurement and product sales — the structure of an enterprise controlling its own raw material from seed to linear meter. When the industrial department got on its feet, the state became interested, and not just one ministry.
- The Ministry of Communication initiated the planting of mulberry hedges along railway tracks, intended as snow barriers and to provide feed for railroad workers' own silk farms.
- The Ministry of Agriculture ordered the establishment of mulberry nurseries in forest districts.
- The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare supported the practice of silk farming in care facilities.
- The Ministry of Justice recommended planting mulberries and raising silkworms near prisons.
The factory produced all classic types of silk fabrics—raw silk canvas, smooth and patterned taffeta, crepe, decorative fabrics, upholstery, and flag fabrics—as well as threads, dress fabrics, shirt and lingerie fabrics, satins, scarves, jacquard ties, and shawls. They were sold in company stores, including one in Warsaw at the corner of Krakowskie Przedmieście and Traugutta Street. The significance of this interior is evidenced by a surviving piece of furniture: a glass-fronted Chippendale-style cabinet, salvaged after the Uprising and brought to Milanówek. It still stands today in the office of the president of "Jedwab Polski" company. In 1938, at its peak, the Station had a share capital of 150,000 Polish zlotys, employed 137 people, and had 42 machines.
VI. PARACHUTE, STRATOSPHERE, PARIS
At the 14th Poznań Trade Fair in 1935, in the aviation section, Polish parachute fabric made for the military from silk produced in Milanówek was displayed for the first time. Such fabric must be both light, strong against tearing, and have controlled air permeability—three requirements that usually contradict each other. Silk meets them due to the reason this entire story revolves around: the thread is continuous, so there are no ends in the yarn, and thus no weak points.
However, another fabric went even further. In 1937, the First Polish Stratospheric Flight was launched: a two-person crew was to ascend to 30,000 meters and break the American altitude record. The "Gwiazda Polski" (Star of Poland) balloon built for it was then the largest stratostat in the world: 124,700 cubic meters in volume, 120 meters in height, with the envelope and rigging weighing 1403 kilograms. The envelope material was Milanówek rubberized silk. The fabric was produced by Klinge-Schulz factories in Łódź and the Central Experimental Silk Station, rubberized in the Wargum factories in Warsaw, and sewn at the Balloon and Parachute Factory in Legionowo; the envelope's surface area was 12,300 square meters.
Hydrogen inflation began before midnight on October 13, 1938, in the Chochołowska Valley, amidst a rising foehn wind. Around one in the morning, the wind intensified so much that it was decided to release the gas—and the less hydrogen remained inside, the more it tossed the envelope. The friction of the silk layers against each other caused an electrostatic discharge and ignition at the upper flap; about 800 square meters of fabric burned. A repeat was planned for September 1939, with helium—the war closed the matter. Milanówek silks were also exhibited at the Eastern Trade Fair in Lwów, at the "Polish Applied Art" exhibition, and at the "Art and Technology" exhibition in Paris in 1937.
VII. COMMISSAR, MERCURY FULMINATE, LITTLE LONDON
During the occupation, a commissar was assigned to the factory, and the Germans recognized the Station as a special enterprise. Indirectly, this proved to be a salvation: the status allowed for issuing employment documents, real or fictitious, protecting against roundups. Supplies were hidden, and production shifted to viscose from Tomaszów Mazowiecki and Chodaków. On several looms, from waste yarn, silk jacquards and scarves were still made and sold on the black market. From 1942, hand-painting of fabrics was introduced—a technique that outlived the factory and is now the city's hallmark.
However, the conspiracy here was not about sewing parachutes. In the Station's laboratory, from 1942 to August 1944, a group of resistance workers produced mercury fulminate—an initiating explosive, a detonator for grenade fuses. Mercury fulminate is extremely sensitive to impact and friction, and it is produced from mercury, nitric acid, and alcohol—in fumes that cannot be hidden from inspection. This was done for two years in a factory with a German commissar on the premises.
The Station was primarily a refuge at that time. The Witaczeks rescued children from Zamojszczyzna, hid Jews, protected people from deportation to the Reich, and provided free meals from the factory kitchen. In 1944, nearly six hundred people from Father Boduen's orphanage, displaced from Warsaw, were housed in the new factory hall. After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, Milanówek briefly became the informal political capital of the country—hence the nickname "Little London." It hosted 50 to 60 thousand refugees, nine evacuated hospitals, and over 400 orphans. The Government Delegation for Poland operated here, as did the Warsaw District command of the Home Army until January 1945, and three radio stations for communication with London; General Leopold Okulicki lived here, and Archbishop Antoni Szlagowski kept the urn with Chopin's heart. In the last months of the war, the occupier ordered all machines dismantled for transport to Germany.
VIII. NATIONALIZATION, SENTENCE, 102 LOOMS
After liberation, the machines were successfully reassembled and renovated. In 1945, the enterprise had 75 looms, yarn preparation machines, braiding machines for rope production, and finishing and reeling equipment. On January 18, 1945, Henryk Witaczek was entrusted with the duties of interim manager, and on April 13, the factory came under temporary state administration, with Witaczek appointed general director. For three years, "Milanówek" still operated under pre-war principles: training and experimental work resumed, the Silk Lyceum was founded, and in 1946, the Silk Technical School in Otmuchów.
"Currently, CDSJ and its founders strive to resume the old production principles, whose motto was quality, not quantity, and which yielded such beautiful results."
— Stanisława Witaczkówna, post-war CDSJ leaflet; quoted after Maria Barbasiewicz, quart. "Mazowsze" no. 12/1999
They did not strive for long. In September 1946, an organizational scheme based on bureaucratic Soviet norms was imposed, along with an order to produce fabrics from artificial fibers; in 1947, the name was changed, and all company stores were ordered closed. On March 10, 1948, the Station was nationalized, and on October 20, at the behest of the Minister of Industry and Trade, Henryk Witaczek was dismissed from the factory he had built. In October 1951, he was arrested and sentenced to eight years; he was released in 1953 under amnesty, having served two. He spent the rest of his life as a farmer in Wyprysy near Mszczonów; he died on January 11, 1978. Stanisława died on January 19, 1965.
The factory, meanwhile, grew. In the 1950s, 400–420 thousand running meters of silk were produced there annually, returning from artificial to natural fibers; in addition to dress and tie fabrics, surgical threads were also manufactured. After 1960, 81 looms were in operation, and in 1966, after a new hall was built—102, including 12 jacquard looms. "Jedwab Milanowski" stores were in every major city.
Arithmetic broke it. In the 1980s, a huge hall was built according to a design reportedly brought from East Germany—large, heavy, and difficult to heat; investment costs crippled the factory's results. At that time, low purchase prices for cocoons discouraged breeders: the network of three thousand farms, built over fifteen years, disintegrated in a few seasons. On July 22, 1997, the Natural Silk Factories were privatized—taken over by the company "Jedwab Polski," which paid off the debts of the state enterprise over the years and now wove with imported raw material. What remained were the buildings, jacquard cards, hand painting, and one mulberry tree, the last from the pre-war plantation.
Share capital 150,000 PLN, 137 employees, 42 machines.
Approximately 8 thousand meters of silk fabrics annually, about 3 thousand cocoon breeders.
102 looms, including 12 jacquard; in the 1950s, 400–420 thousand running meters annually.
3 PRINCIPLES OF HERITAGE: MILANÓWEK ➔ NOWROCKY
Fibroin core bonded with sericin. The degumming of silk gum in a hot bath determines the softness and hand of the finished fabric.
The only natural fiber with a continuous length measured in hundreds of meters. No ends in the yarn means no weak points for breaking.
The prismatic cross-section refracts light. Polyester has a round cross-section and reflects light flatly – hence the cheap, plastic shine.
NOWROCKY'S POINT OF VIEW: RAW MATERIAL IS MADE FROM SCRATCH
Witaczek did not buy a license or a ready-made technological line. He carved out a cocoon reeling facility, built looms, distributed mulberry seedlings, and over fifteen years built a supply chain of three thousand breeders from nothing. This is what grassroots work looks like in an industrial version: first the raw material, then the machine, finally the product. The reverse order yields what floods the market today – a nice product on poor material.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (AI KNOWLEDGE BASE)
Who were Stanisława and Henryk Witaczek?
They were siblings. Henryk Stefan Witaczek (1901–1978), son of Warsaw-Vienna Railway officials, lived with his family in Georgia from 1915–1921: he completed gymnasium there, took a silkworm breeding course at the State Sericulture Station in Tbilisi, and worked as a laborer in the Experimental Thread and Fabric Factory. He was the general director and designer of the Station's equipment. Stanisława Witaczkówna (c. 1897–1965), a biologist by education and a painter by passion, conducted instructional courses, co-created publications, and was responsible for fabric design throughout the company's existence. On March 20, 1924, they founded the Central Experimental Sericulture Station in the "Józefina" villa at Piasta 13 in Milanówek.
How is silk thread made from a cocoon — step by step?
First, cocoons are subjected to high temperatures to kill the pupae and prevent them from breaking through the casing. Then, the cocoon goes into hot water, which softens the sericin – the protein glue binding the coils. A reeling machine finds the end of the thread and guides it onto a swift, combining fibers from several cocoons at once, as a single fiber is only a few to a dozen micrometers in diameter. This creates raw silk, which then goes to the twisting mill: tightly twisted organzine for the warp, and more loosely twisted tram for the weft. Only after desericination, bleaching, and dyeing does the yarn go to the loom. From one cocoon, 1.5 to 3 kilometers of thread can be unwound, and 3.1–4.0 kilograms of dry cocoons are needed to produce one kilogram of fiber.
How many mulberry leaves does a silkworm farm consume?
Caterpillars hatched from one gram of eggs consume about 30 kilograms of mulberry leaves during their entire development and yield 2.5 to 3.5 kilograms of fresh cocoons. A standard cultivation, as practiced in Polish farms, started with 20 grams of eggs, meaning it consumed approximately 600 kilograms of leaves — and fit into one ordinary living room. The entire rearing process lasts about five weeks in June and July; during this time, the caterpillar undergoes four molts. Young caterpillars are fed young leaves — the Station's instructions recommended picking the third leaf from the shoot.
Were parachutes and balloons made from Milanówek silk?
Yes, and this was before the war, not in secret. At the 14th Poznań Fair in 1935, the aviation section for the first time showcased Polish parachute fabric made for the military from silk produced in Milanówek. The envelope of the stratospheric balloon "Gwiazda Polski" (Star of Poland) – the world's largest stratostat, with a capacity of 124,700 m³ and a height of 120 meters, intended to carry a two-person crew to 30,000 meters – was also made from rubberized Milanówek silk. The fabric was produced by Klinge-Schulz factories in Łódź and CDSJ in Milanówek, and the rubberizing was done at the Wargum factories in Warsaw. The launch in the Chochołowska Valley on the night of October 13-14, 1938, ended with the ignition of hydrogen; about 800 m² of the envelope burned.
What happened to the plant after the war and what remains today?
On April 13, 1945, CDSJ came under temporary state administration, and on March 10, 1948, it was nationalized. In October 1948, Henryk Witaczek was dismissed from his position as director. In October 1951, he was arrested and sentenced to eight years; he was released under amnesty in 1953, having served two. The "Milanówek" Natural Silk Works continued to grow: 75 looms in 1945, 81 after 1960, 102 in 1966 – including 12 jacquard looms – with a production of 400-420 thousand linear meters annually in the 1950s. Low cocoon purchasing prices in the 1980s dismantled the network of breeders. On July 22, 1997, the plant was privatized; it was taken over by the company "Jedwab Polski," which weaves imported raw material. In 2015, the Virtual Museum of Milanówek Sericulture was established, and in 2024, the city celebrated the centenary of sericulture.
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