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Touching Photographs Capture the Love Shared Between a Lesbian Couple in Poland and Their Children

By Ellyn Kail on April 21, 2015

Gdansk, Poland: Agnes and Honorata

Gdansk, Poland: Agnes and Honorata after work

For Between the Blocks, Warsaw-based photographer Anna Liminowicz tells the story of Honorata and Agnieszka, a couple living in Poland with their two children.

As soon as the photographer met the couple through a mutual friend, she knew that she wanted to document their lives, to trace the threads of personal history and love that brought their families together under one roof. Honorata spent her early years as a teacher of Christianity prior to the birth of her daughter Natalie, and it was after years of living as a single mother and coming out as a lesbian that she met Agnieszka, a divorced mother of a small boy named Antek.

When the photographer entered the family’s life, Agnieszka and Honorata were living in a 19-square-meter studio apartment in Gdansk with Natalie, now fourteen, and Hororata’s brother Michal. Both women worked side-by-side at a grocery store fish market as well as a wholesale warehouse, where they worked stocking shelves. Their home, the photographer says, was filled to the brim with laughter and affection, and the couple was well-known throughout their community for their unfailing generosity. Whenever a family member or friend showed up at their doorstep, Liminowicz notes, they always pitched in a helping hand.

Despite the close-knit nature of the blended family, Agnieszka’s parents have had trouble accepting their daughter’s sexuality, and while the couple was living in Gdansk, five-year-old Antek lived with his grandparents. Recently, however, both women were promoted as managers in the supermarket and have relocated to Kalisz, where they purchased a three-bedroom apartment that the entire family can call home. After a long wait, Agnieszka’s parents have allowed Antek to move into his mother’s home, where he had his very own room awaiting his arrival.

The couple recently authorized Liminowicz to publish her images in a Polish newspaper in hopes of expressing the joy that their relationship brings to the family. Sadly, Agnieszka’s mother and father refuse to discuss the story for now. The boy’s father is often judged or pressured by his friends to keep him from Agnieszka and her partner, but he holds firm in his recognition that the child loves both mothers and is happiest at home with them. Same-sex marriage, Liminowicz says, is a sensitive subject in Poland, and homosexual couples are not given the same rights as heterosexuals. More than anything, Honorata and Agnieszka desire acceptance and tolerance. They hope someday to have another child together.

Anna Liminowicz is part of the photography collective Inproduction.

Between the blocks