The Tatra Mountain Rescue Service is 100 years old in Poland. 

The service  was registered in what was the Austrian zone of the partitioned Poland on 29 October 1909 as the first rescue society from outside the Alpine countries.

The establishment of the Tatra Mountain Rescue Service came shortly after the fatal accident in which the famous composer Mieczysław Karłowicz died under the avalanche in the Tatras in February 1909.

Karłowicz’s music is used as the soundtrack of a documentary film about one hundred years of Poland’s mountain rescue service.

Entitled Responding to every call for help, the film, just released on DVD, is a story about the beauty of Polish mountains, the sacrifice of the rescuers, the joy of those whose life has been saved and the sorrow of those who lost their dearest ones in the mountains. (mk)