Adventurer, reporter, photographer

Mieczysław Sędzimir Antoni Halik was born in Toruń on 24 January 1921 and already in his adolescence he embarked on the life of adventure. During the war, he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, from where he fled to fight in the French resistance movement, for which he was awarded Croix de Guerre, the French military Cross of War. Then he was a pilot in the Polish Armed Forces in the West. After the war he settled in Argentina, where he founded a pilot school. He later built a house in Mexico. However, the greatest passion of his life was travelling. He penetrated through the Amazon forest, exposing himself to numerous dangers. Photography and filming were another passion, which he pursued already during the war. From 1950 he collaborated with the American NBC television. In 1975 he returned to Poland, from where he and Elżbieta Dzikowska set off on further journeys. They presented reports from these journeys together in television programmes such as Pepper and Vanilla. For many Poles these programs were a window to the world at a time when the passport had to be applied for to passport offices of the then Citizens' Militia, usually to no avail.

The exotic souvenirs brought from numerous journeys became the foundation of the Tony Halik Explorers' Museum established in Toruń in 2003.

The exhibition is prepared by students of the 8th High School in Toruń.