(For more photos from Poland, click here and here)
Not all of
the sidewalks have yet been cleared of snow. The grainy white piles look like
soft sand on a beach. Some doorsteps consist of 20 cm of crystal clear ice. Poles
are used to grim winters, however, and the squares in the city centre of Wrocław have been cleared of snow. On a sunny day like this they are full of
flaneurs. We join the flow and stroll to the Sand Island with its many
churches.
In the
empty aisle of the Church of Maria on the Sands, three pushchairs are parked.
Curious, we follow a man with a toddler through a side door into a small chapel.
It takes us a while to get used to the dimly lit room: On all four walls,
tables are placed with illuminated Christmas trees and chains of lights. Hundreds
of toys have been set up in mechanical installations, swirling and moving
around. Stunned children are watching the toys, and now and again one of them
puts a coin into a metal slit to set another mechanism in motion. The
caretaker, a tiny old man at the back wall, is handing out business-card sized
pictures of guardian angels that are meant to protect young and old throughout
the next year.
„Silence
please,“ the neon-signs on the ceiling proclaim when we mingle with a dozen
Polish tourists to follow the attendant. Solemnly she leads us up a spiral
staircase into the main showroom of the Racławice Panorama. The huge 360-degree
battle painting is presented in a purpose-built round hall. Originally painted
in Lviv in 1894 – when mega-paintings of this kind were en vogue in Europe – the
Racławice Panorama had to be packed and stored during World War II and ended up
in Wrocław. The theme of the painting was not popular
with the new communist rulers of Poland, however: In the 1794 battle of Racławice,
Polish nationalists gained a rare and heroic victory over the Russians. It took
decades for the 1800 square meter painting to be shown again. Today it is again
one of the main attractions of Wrocław. „General Kószcinsko in a white
coat, behind him the heroic Polish peasants,“ a reverential voice explains from
the speakers. „The Russian canoneers are fleeing.“ Polish couples point out
details of the scene to each other. „...easy targets for the Polish snipers...,“
they observe.
„You would go
to the Centennial Hall for Sunday afternoon tea or for concerts.“ Isa's
grandmother had lived in Wrocław in her youth, when it was still called
Breslau, a modern cosmopolitan city where she would sneak into the movies with
her older sisters. At that time the Centennial Hall was the new architectonic pride
of Breslau: Built in 1913 by the local architect Max Berg using new
ferroconcrete technologies, it boasted the world's largest cupola (with a
diameter of 67 m). A seated audience of
10.000 could comfortably follow cultural events, and exhibitions and trade
shows were held here. In the 1920s, modern designers built model living
quarters next to the hall. It was here, during the 1948 World Peace Congress,
that Picasso drew his famous Dove of Peace on a napkin during dinner. These
days the hall is used for sports events, and when we visit, some workers are
just preparing the stage for a bridal-wear show.
A few days
later we are back in Berlin, where it is just as cold as in Poland. None of the
sidewalks and very few roads are cleared of snow.
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