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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2024
In the summer of 1968, Stefan Kisielewski, Poland's preeminent Catholic intellectual and a liberal of a Tocquevillean hue (he worked for the indepen-dent Tygodnik Powszechny) went on a tour of Lower Silesia. His first stop was Wrocław. “I volunteer to craft two well-documented reports,” he wrote in a diary. “Number one: it's dismal out here, with poverty and hopelessness all around. Number two: the reconstruction is in progress, social advancement all around, the industrialization, a social melting pot, etc. etc. The reality is devilishly complex and it's hard to make generalizations… . Surely Wrocław has many beautiful things [to offer]: if only the stupid Germans hadn't allowed such devastation in their senseless last stand! If only the post-war period hadn't made it worse!” That same evening he pondered the countryside on a bus from Wrocław to Jelenia Góra. “The landscape is beautiful and melan-choly at the same time,” he wrote. “Village houses are all made of brick and look thoroughly German. Inside these houses live the Polish peasants who, as a matter of fact, have never had it so good. Unfortunately, unlike in the cit-ies, no new construction ever begins. The houses are uniformly old. The same barn which served a German forty years ago now serves a Pole… . When will this change? Sure, all's in working order and well cared for. For these simple folks this is indisputable progress.”
While in Jelenia Góra Kisielewski made a trip to a hot spring resort in nearby Cieplice. As before, he was struck by the contrasts: “In all fairness, there's been a major progress in the four years since I last visited. The spa is meticulously clean, the houses are freshly painted, the transportation has improved… . You see simple people, all relatively well-dressed. A depressing monotony, too. Everybody wears the same Polish-made clothes and shoes, everybody looks the same… . In a word, a classical plebeian leveling.
Jelenia Góra itself, a large, historic town in the Karkonosze foothills, further soured his mood.
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