"To the glory of the Poles in Peru" is the Spanish inscription engraved on the monument to the Polish engineering pioneers Jan Edward Habich, Aleksander Babiński, Władysław Kluger, Władysław Folkierski and Franciszek Ksawery Wakulski, who were active in Peru from the second half of the 19th century.

Peruvian gratitude
As a token of public appreciation for his contribution to the modernisation of the newly formed republic of Peru, a monument was erected in the Plaza de Polonia in the central part of the Lima metropolitan area to commemorate the activities and contributions of Jan Edward Habich, founder of the first technical college on the continent, and his Polish comrades who formed the academic core of the college. In addition to their teaching activities, they also carried out projects commissioned by the Peruvian government in the fields of engineering, railways, mechanics, geology, hydrology, topography and other sciences.

The first token of the Peruvian community's gratitude for the Polish contribution to Peru's economic development was the founding of a marble statue of J.E. Habich on the fifth anniversary of his death (1914). It was chiseled by Parisian sculptor Charles Theodor Perron, but some sources say the author was Carlo Libero Valente. It was originally set up in an elite part of historic Lima, opposite the basilica and convent of San Augustin. However, on the centenary of J.E Habich's birth (1935), coinciding with the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Lima's founding, another commemoration was created, of which this sculpture became part. Today, the statue is located in the Plaza de Polonia, in the old Jesús María district (near the present location of the Polish Embassy in Lima), where it has been incorporated into a monument to Polish engineers working in Peru.

The monument was designed in the modernising shape of three adjacent rectangles, together forming a marble body. Habich's bust was placed in the central part in the shape of a frame and rested on a female figure holding a torch. According to interpretations, the torch symbolises knowledge and the woman raising it, Nike, symbolises the nation. The left, side part, is filled with the Polish crowned eagle and bronze plaques depicting busts of Franciszek Ksawery Wakulski and Władysław Folkierski. The right side of the monument features, based on two condors, Lima's coat of arms, together with busts of Władysław Kluger and Aleksander Babiński (also on bronze plaques). An inscription in Spanish is engraved under the Lima coat of arms: "To the glory of the Poles in Peru".

It should be noted that representatives of the generation of Polish engineers, appreciated for their contribution to the development of technical thought and the exploitation of Peru's economic potential (based on its rich natural resources), arrived in the young republic, which had existed for only a few decades, at an extremely turbulent time. In an economic race on a continent throwing off the colonial yoke, Peruvians were often involved in armed conflicts. First they defended themselves against the Spaniards trying to regain influence (1865-1866), then they competed with their neighbours for territories and sources of valuable mineral resources (the saltpeter war of 1879-1883). In addition to their obvious achievements, it was the Polish presence during the country's historic period that strengthened such a positive image of Poles in the Peruvian consciousness.

Beginning of scientific and technical cooperation
The genesis of building a common scientific and technical heritage, however, begins earlier, with a Polish engineer - Ernest Malinowski - designer of the Central Transandine Railway (the highest railway line in the world until 2006). Thanks to his heroism during the defence of the port of Callao, during the war with Spain, Malinowski was recognised as Peru's national hero. His authority and expert opinion helped convince representatives of the Peruvian government to contract more Polish immigrant engineers, including graduates of the Paris School of Roads and Bridges (École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées - ENPC). Among them, Jan Edward Habich, a veteran of the Crimean War and the January Uprising, after whose fall he fled to France, where he served as director of the Polish High School, arrived in Peru. Initially, J.E. Habich signed only a three-year contract, beginning by coordinating irrigation projects in the south of Peru, carrying out urban planning projects, repairing the Central Railway and expanding the port of Arica.

Soon, due to his experience in educational and scientific work, the Peruvian government entrusted him with the mission of building a university. From 1873 and his departure as a delegate of the Peruvian government to the World Exposition in Vienna, Habich made contacts that would later create an academic cadre of technical disciplines at the Peruvian university. Soon, the Peruvian Embassy in Paris began to contract Polish scholars, lecturers and engineers. Their decision to go to South America was facilitated by the situation surrounding the French surrender in the War of 1870-1871, when - in line with Prussian demands - educational centres, including those around which Poles had previously gathered, were closed.

The oldest technical college on the Latin American continent
Also arriving in Peru were Władysław Folkierski, Władysław Kluger, Franciszek Ksawery Wakulski and Aleksander Babiński, who formed the scientific and teaching staff of the Higher School of Engineering and Mining (Escuela de Construcciones Civiles y de Minas del Perú), which opened in 1876. Habich later brought it to university level. Today, the university operates as the Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería. Later on, the founder of the university's architecture department was another Pole, the architect Ryszard de Jaxa Malachowski.

In addition to their scientific activities, the newly-arrived engineers were also involved in government projects, still financed through guano exports. Wakulski set up the telegraph network in Peru, while Folkierski ran the Peruvian Lake Titicaca Shipping Company and designed the Pisco - Ica railway. Kluger designed the water and sewage network in Callao, and coordinated the construction of the port of Arica. Babinski, meanwhile, designed Peru's first geological maps. J.E. Habich himself, in addition to serving as president of the university for life, coordinated the activities of the Central Council of Government Engineers (1878-1884), co-designed the Peruvian Mining Law and the project to introduce the metric system. He co-organised the Lima Geographical Society (with E. Malinowski, among others), the Chamber of Industry and the Office of Weights and Measures. He served as an expert of the Council of Public Works. He was honoured with Peruvian citizenship for his services.

The emigration activities of Polish engineers in Peru, to whom we owe a positive image on the west coast of South America, is still an inexhaustible topic academically, but also insufficiently inscribed in the consciousness of contemporary Poles.