As usual, I am spending the holidays visiting my sister in Poland—specifically, in Wroclaw (Breslau), a city of about 700,000 people in the Lower Silesia, the south-western region of Poland which was restored to Polish rule in 1945 following more than 200 years as part of Germany. In fact, the entire western part of Poland was under German rule until the end of World War II. Following the war, the entire country was effectively moved westwards; the eastern parts were ceded to the then Soviet Union (and today form parts of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) while the eastern parts of Germany were ceded to Poland. There was a corresponding movement of people: what became western Poland was emptied of its German population which was resettled in the new East Germany, while the newly Polish lands were settled by Polish refugees from the lost eastern parts.
Of course, this is not how history was taught when I was a child in Communist Poland in the 1960s. Back then, we were taught the official party line that Wroclaw and the surrounding region was ancient Polish land which was returned to its rightful owners. No mention was made of the Germans forcibly resettled to our “democratic” neighbours DDR. Aside from the occasional Protestant church and the architecture of old Wroclaw there were hardly any traces left of the city’s German heritage. Given what happened between 1939 and 1945 this is perhaps not surprising. Likewise, no traces were left of the large Jewish and Czech populations. The official propaganda was simply that Wroclaw had always been a Polish city and nothing else. For those who want to learn about the history of this city and indeed this entire corner of Central Europe, Norman Davies’s excellent book “Microcosm—A History of a European City” is highly recommended.
Since the fall of Communism in 1989 the picture has become much more nuanced. While the issue of the German heritage is still very touchy (Poland is a strongly nationalistic country), the Jewish heritage is being stressed much more—there is even a Jewish school, although I wonder who goes there given the small number of Jews remaining in Poland. And even the German origins of Wroclaw are now much more important in the official picture of the city—one suspects this has as much to do with capitalizing on the many elderly German tourists who come here as with an desire to redress historical inaccuracies. But whatever the motive, this more nuanced image has made Wroclaw a much more interesting, and frankly more attractive city during the past 15 years.
However, here is one decidedly unattractive remnant of German architecture: the Jahrhunderhalle was built in 1913 to commemorate the centenary of the liberation of the city from a brief occupation by Napoleon. Even though the building is from long before the Nazi period, I am sure the Nazis loved it. Indeed, Hitler gave a major speech there before 10,000 enthusiastic supporters during a campaign rally in 1932.
Amazingly, the building survived the war and the Communists renamed it Hala Ludowa, or People’s Hall. Today, it is partly a concert arena, partly office space.
On this trip, I also visited Gdansk (Danzig) for the first time in my life. This is quite a city. It has a rich past as a member of the Hanseatic League. More recently, the first shots of World War II were fired here on 1st September 1939; and still more recently, this is the city that more than any other place is associated with successive worker revolts, the rise of the Solidarity trade union at the Gdansk Shipyard and the whole chain of subsequent events that culminated in 1989-90 with the fall of Communism in Eastern and Central Europe.
Interestingly, in Gdansk there is a similar trend to re-emphasize the city’s international heritage, probably for both internal consumption and for the tourists. In several restaurants and other public places, old German maps of the city are used as decorations. Definitely a place worth a visit!
