Tomasz, Pawel, anyone, feel free to correct me if facts are wrong, the opinions, I take credit/blame for myself....
After it's first couple of hundred years perhaps (beginning in 1000), Wroclaw was not part of Poland. Near the end of World War II, Wroclaw (along with Dresden ) was almost untouched by the fighting but Nazis held the city until the bitter end - and bitter it was. In the final weeks, in building to building fighting, Wroclaw was about 75% destroyed. Earlier women and children had been moved eastward to Wroclaw to be out of the war areas but now they and the citizens of Breslau were forced to leave, with many, many of them dying along the way. Some were forced to walk miles to other towns in cold weather to find trains west. Many of the survivors ended up in Dresden, not long before the firebombing of Dresden.....
So, after the end of the war I don't pretend to understand all the Allies did but this area was declared to be part of Poland now, although never sought after by the Polish government in exile. And the whole country was under the Soviet Union's "care". What wasn't destroyed was only further harmed by the Soviets who removed most things of value and Polish people from further East were uprooted from their homes and forced to move to Wroclaw.
Whew, are you still with me? You'll get a break with some pictures soon,
In certain neighborhoods, and near the train station you are struck by the work needed, the buildings still in disrepair or just in need of cleaning and/or painting. An interesting example was a beauty salon called Le Grand Salon. From the outside, the building is not particularly inviting and does not evoke images of grand and barely of it's former beauty. Inside it was totally modern and gorgeous and looked quite upscale.
There are many buildings in even worse shape and lots of Soviet era "architecture" - there are many many of these, mostly built where the buildings were so damaged they were just removed.
BUT, back up a bit to what these people were handed in 1945 (pictures from a museum and outside some churches)
University in 1945 and 2005
A church through the years...
and you can see what the almost unbelievable amount of lovingly accurate restoration has already taken place to have the town hall and squares now look like this
To be sure the work goes on
Contrast of these buildings shows what can be done
Blending old and new
To create a beautiful, vibrant city where these 3rd and 4th generation Poles can take ownership, feel pride and see the effects of their hard work and hopefully end of such hard times. The feeling you get on the streets here is no longer of ghosts of former buildings, former inhabitants, but of an upbeat, hopeful, and successful city. Ok, now you all need to add Wroclaw to your bucket list....
When we said we were arriving by train, it was lamented that we would see the train station at it's worst - in a temporary location until the station remodeling is done before the 2012 Euro Games - and it does look like it will be beautiful but I am happy to have seen that, and feel a bit of the changes, and hope to come back and see the new station when it is completed.
So, I could have gone on and on and I have so many more pictures...
I will do one more post from here but I promise no politics or philosophy, just nice
pictures and cute stories... our boat ride, visit to the old Jesuit university building and views from the top of that tower. Maybe a little more food and we leave on our train ride back to Paris and fly home....
