Warsaw is celebrating a series of anniversaries associated with its postwar reconstruction. Will it finally be better understood and appreciated?
cumulation of anniversaries
In 2020 there is an accumulation of anniversaries related to the reconstruction of Warsaw. After all, most of the decisions were made equally 75 years ago: On January 3, 1945, the National National Council decided on the capital city of Warsaw and its reconstruction, and on February 14 of the same year the Bureau of Capital Reconstruction (BOS) was established. March 3, 2020 also marked the 120th anniversary of the birth of Jan Zachwatowicz, a figure of great importance in the formation of the city after the war, whose authority also influenced projects in other Polish cities. In September 2020, moreover, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the inclusion of the capital's Old Town on the UNESCO World Heritage List (placed there, after all, precisely because of the phenomenon of its reconstruction).
reconstruction of Warsaw, workers during paving of the street, on the left you can see trwamwaj nr 16, 1948
© National Digital Archives
The anniversaries became a pretext for organizing many events recalling the post-war reality, the reconstruction process, the projects and people involved. The Warsaw Museum launched a year-long series of meetings, debates, exhibitions, concerts under the common title "BudujeMy!", the Warsaw Friends Society declared 2020 the year of Jan Zachwatowicz, the History Meeting House in the spring prepared an exhibition and album "Warsaw anew. Reporter Photographs 1945-49", in the autumn it will show an exhibition entitled "Warsaw. "Poland 1945-1989 through the lens of Magnum agency photojournalists." The POLIN Museum will present the history of Muranów, a neighborhood that grew right after the war on the ruins of the ghetto, and the Andrzej Wajda Center for Film Culture will organize screenings of films and series, related to the history of reconstruction, happening right after the war in Warsaw.
inventory of destruction
Admittedly, while many of these events were scheduled for the spring - and thus have been canceled or postponed - the debate has already begun and the topic of reconstruction has returned to the consciousness of the city's residents. Moreover, it is possible to get acquainted with the reality found by residents returning to the capital in January 1945, or by officials and politicians arranging the future of Poland and Warsaw at the time, without leaving home. Thanks to the initiative of the Capital Conservator of Monuments, the State Archives and the Bureau of Geodesy and Cadastre of the City of Warsaw, a plan for inventorying Warsaw's wartime destruction was launched in the city's mapping system in February 2020. These are maps, created by employees of the Bureau of Capital Reconstruction, who took stock of Warsaw's buildings in 1945-46. They plotted the condition of the buildings and infrastructure located in the city on maps, which became the basis for reconstruction projects. This priceless document is a record of the appearance of the capital in the first months after the war, an objective and reliable documentation of the state of the city. According to the legend accompanying the map, BOS employees divided the objects on the territory of the capital into: undamaged, burned in a very small percentage, buildings with damaged roofs, buildings partially damaged, buildings burned in a large percentage, unfinished buildings, burned to the ground and completely destroyed.
Reconstruction of Warsaw, group of people at work with paving stones, 1948
© National Digital Archive
The BOS inventory plans can be viewed from home by anyone today - they are a poignant source of knowledge, showing all too well the state of preservation of Warsaw's buildings. In addition, the BOS map has been superimposed on a contemporary view of the city with its currently existing buildings, which also allows one to realize the scale of changes that have taken place in the area (the map is available here). It is worth mentioning, by the way, that the entire archive of the Bureau of Capital Reconstruction has been digitized for several years and is available to everyone on the Internet - the collection consists of 48971 scans. There are - as you can read in the description of this collection - orders, reports, minutes, sketches, opinions, programs, plans, papers, proposals, budget, schemes, programs, estimates, inventories, statements.
best city in the world
At the end of February 2020, a rather long-awaited book by Grzegorz Piatek on the reconstruction of the city also went on sale. Published by W.A.B, the volume "The World's Best City. Warsaw in reconstruction 1944-1949", although based on laboriously collected archives, reads like a novel: Piątek sensitively reconstructs the realities of a time when tragedy mingled with hope, and great political changes were the backdrop for the actions of sincerely committed experts and enthusiasts. The book beats the atmosphere of the dilemmas lived by the members of the BOS, arguing about how much of old Warsaw should be restored, and to what extent its destruction is an opportunity to build a modern metropolis.
Warsaw's chief architect Jozef Sigalin (2nd from right, wearing cap) in a group of unrecognized men, 1947
© National Digital Archive
The brilliantly written book pairs perfectly with Jozef Sigalin's biography by Andrzej Skalimowski (Czarne Publishing House), published in 2018. Both researchers come from a generation devoid of the emotional traumas of the People's Republic of Poland or political prejudices, analyzing the achievements of the post-war years in a perhaps more objective manner. And since we are already talking about important players of the time of reconstruction, we could also use a biography of Jan Zachwatowicz, written reliably and without emotional overtures....
complicated reality
Why is it worth taking an interest in events, related to anniversaries and anniversaries of the time of reconstruction of Warsaw? Like probably every topic in this country, post-war reconstruction is still considered in political terms today. Some are disturbed by the fact that it took place during the communist takeover under Soviet administration (so they understand it as an imposed action by the occupying USSR to the detriment of Poland). Others calculate laboriously how many buildings could nevertheless have been salvaged from the wartime conflagration - claiming that the Communists purposely demolished existing tenements in order to demolish the "Paris of the North" with their visions of dehumanized apartment blocks. There is a group that believes that the reconstruction of the capital is not yet over, as there are still many buildings to be restored (with the Saxon Palace at the forefront). The myth that pre-war Warsaw was a world-class metropolis that was not specifically restored after World War II is still very much alive. Meanwhile, today we already know that unequivocal assessments of those events are unfair and unauthorized, because the reality then was much more complicated and was not created solely by "evil communists." It would be great if, on the occasion of the anniversary events, we could better understand the decisions made in 1945 or 1946, the reality in which officials and politicians, but also architects, urban planners and conservationists operated. Maybe the distance of 75 years will allow us to look at those events without political bias - because although this context cannot be omitted, of course, it was not politicians who were the main decision-makers during the creation of the vision of post-war Warsaw.
