On September 18, 1939, following the Soviet aggression on eastern part of Poland (see: Kresy), the personnel of the Observatory packed the most important equipment (including the refractor) and left toward the Hungarian border. At first it was taken to the Budapest Konkoly Observatory, and by the end of war to the Vienna Observatory. Within the first years after the war, the equipment returned to Poland. The three-lens objective today is located in the Silesian Planetarium (Katowice).