Łódź, a city from memory and recollections
I was born in Łódź and lived there for 35 years. All the most emotional things in my life happened in Łódź. First cigarettes, first friendships, first love... All my first times happened in Łódź.
Discoveries
When I close my eyes, I see Łódź. I can remember where I smoked my first cigarette, I can remember how I felt at any given moment. In Łodź I read Dostoyevsky, Stachura, Nabokov and Mann for the first time. In Łódź, I listened to Breakout, Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. It was all very strong and intense.
I think that is also why I moved out of that city: I could not make my films there. For life in Łódź was too full of emotions. I had to leave to tell the story of it. It is only now when I live in the forest that I can return to these emotions.
The city of industry…
When I was a child, Łódź was my natural environment. Soot was floating in the air, and beautiful, smoky chimneys were all around. In those days, I thought that the whole world looked like that.
It was not until I was six years old that I went to the seaside with my mother and I saw that things could be different. Our rail ride took all night and when we got there—dawn was breaking. Then I felt the fresh air from the sea. It was something incredible, that space, a giant sea, brightness, and a gentle breeze.
Around my home, there was that awful smell of vinegar. When walking by the tenement house where I lived, you had to hold your nose because a nearby dyehouse released industrial quantities of vinegar into the sewerage system.
Wall advertising in communist Poland
One of the characteristics of Polish urban space in the 21st century are murals: monumental, fancy paintings, painted by artists on the blind walls of buildings. However, they are not a new phenomenon in the Polish landscape. Since the 1960s, large-format advertising often took a similar form. It is worth adding that the socialist system in force at that time accepted no free market economy. Consequently, large foreign corporations and businesses did not operate in Poland, so the walls of buildings were used for advertising purposes mainly by state-owned enterprises. Those included the bank PKO, the insurance company PZU, the Polish consumers' co-operative PSS SPOŁEM, operator of a chain of grocery shops, or Pewex. The latter was a retail chain that offered imported goods not generally available like foreign spirits, sweets, toys, clothes, which one could purchase for dollars or special foreign exchange vouchers. As Łódź was known for the then well-developed textile industry, advertisements of textile companies were also put on the walls there. That is why, the authentic Łódź advertisements mentioned in Mariusz Wilczyński's film include advertising murals of Pewex and the clothing factory LIDO, painted on the blind wall of the building at 49/51 Kościuszki Avenue.
For decades, these formally remarkable paintings, often designed by famous graphic designers, were part of the Polish urban space. Along with the changing economic and political scene, they began to disappear under the new plasterwork put on renovated buildings—they were done away with as a sign of the old, little-loved times. Today, 40–50 years after their creation, we again appreciate their forms and try to protect the few advertising murals that have survived. Some of them have been preserved in Łódź. Perhaps they will be taken care of by the local conservation officer, as happened with one of the Warsaw advertising murals from the 1970s.
...and violence
During my studies, I lived in Łódź Górna, a district where the Bronx could be a kindergarten. One part of it was inhabited by gypsies, the other one by Poles. The gypsies were okey because they only beat one another. Polish wastrels beat everybody.
I remember the gypsies: I could see their fights from my balcony many times. Gypsies would go outside and regardless of the time of year they would drop the top of their clothes and start a show. Behind each one of them stood their wives, grandmothers, children, and uncles, who pulled them away like in tug of war.
Tenement houses in Łódź
Łódź is quite a young city, developed in the 19th century, when a small settlement turned into a large industrial centre. In 1820, Łódź had a population of 700, while in 1920 it counted almost half a million. The most dynamic development of the city took place at the turn of the 20th century. At that time a large part of the city's centre was built, mainly including ornamental tenements and mansion blocks. They were developed by factory owners, merchants, and wealthy townsmen as investment: apartments in the tenements were for rent. Łódź was mostly unaffected by World War II and a vast part of those stylish buildings survived. After the war, in the new political and economic realities, Łódź tenement houses became the property of the communist state and turned into a ‘housing stock’ – a pool of flats which the authorities granted to tenants under centrally imposed regulations. Large, pre-war apartments were often divided into smaller units, where families of workers, teachers, and officers were accommodated. That could have been considered an ideal model of social integration if not for the fact that the more well-off and better educated residents left the tenement houses as soon as the opportunity arose because those buildings did not offer great comforts. The state and municipal authorities did not take good care of these houses, and much less did the tenants who had no property rights to them. Consequently, the tenements were more and more lacking in maintenance, falling into ruin and losing their architectural values. It was not until the 21st century that the authorities of Łódź started to implement programmes to renovate the historical buildings in the city centre but also undertook social actions to support their inhabitants.
Trams to a better world
Łódź is also about trams. Wherever I lived in this city, there were trams everywhere. When I slept by the open window, I could hear the shrieking of tram tracks and twisting trams from afar—they were like whale songs. These sounds of trams were like blues music that took me somewhere far away, to a better place.
Trams were something quite obvious back then. World top three football player at that time, Zbigniew Boniek, would go by the same tram I took to go to school. With a bag on his shoulder, he went to his practice by a stinking, crackling tram. He would get off at Widzew Stadium, and I would go on.
The masters
Mom
My mother raised me all alone and she found it hard. A repatriate from Vilnius, she came to Łódź after the war and she had to catch up in school. She probably did three grades in one year. At 17, she was admitted to Łódź Film School. Ranked first at the entry exam, she was too young to study and was told to come back next year.
But my grandfather was very conservative and feared that the film industry would corrupt her daughter. So he did everything he could to drive her away from the idea of studying at the film school. Then my mom went to learn food chemistry. She lived quite modestly, and I had the impression that she was overwhelmed by a sense of unfulfillment.
As a little boy, I would sometimes watch her through the open bathroom door and see her take a hand shower and sing to it, imagining she was on the stage at the music festival in Opole.
Actors
Irena Kwiatkowska, an elderly lady from the train
Ms Irena Kwiatkowska was my childhood companion. Mom used to play me her fairy tales often. Sometimes to entertain me and sometimes to make me stop whining when she had something to do. When mom played fairy tales on my turntable called Delfin, I was travelling to another world. I remember the ‘Red Riding Hood’, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Plastuś' Diary’. I listened to them as a boy, and Mrs Kwiatkowska was like a grandmother telling fairy tales to me. I wanted to bring her back in the film.’
Andrzej Wajda
Finding the right partner for Mrs Kwiatkowska took me a long time. I considered Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Franciszek Pieczka, Wojciech Pokora, and even Władysław Bartoszewski. When it occurred to me that Andrzej Wajda would play the Warsaw insurgent, I jumped up with joy. I knew immediately that it was the right choice.
The character was born during a trip. Once I saw an old man on the train, a Warsaw insurgent in a uniform and with an armband on his arm. It was deeply touching and authentic. Especially nowadays when the memory of the uprising is being fought for, stolen, and manipulated. That inspired me to create the character of a poor insurgent who wants to sell his commemorative medal.’
‘Andrzej Wajda became the key to this character. It was him who told us all about the tragedy of the Warsaw Uprising in his Sewer.
Andrzej Wajda—biographical note
There was no other artist in Polish cinema who would become such a symbol of remembrance of the national past. He was a chronicler and designer of Polish national identity. He told the Polish audience about the hell of war, portrayed early communism in Poland, and brutally exposed the falsehood of socialist propaganda. From the very start, his movies encouraged a discussion about who we are – whether we can break free from our history or whether the sins of ancestors must inevitably burden the conscience of the generations to come.
In Kill it and leave this town he becomes the voice of a Warsaw insurgent, a witness to past events and an ambassador of memory—also the memory that persecutes, tires and restricts when the man tries to make a claim for his own self.’
/You can read about history in Andrzej Wajda's films here./
Marek Kondrat and Anna Dymna
‘Half of Andrzej Wajda's dialogues were voiced by Marek Kondrat, who fantastically imitated Andrzej's voice. He also agreed to play my father.’
‘I really wanted Anna Dymna and Marek Kondrat to play my parents in the film. I wanted my mother to be played by a good person, not someone who pretends to be good only on screen, but someone good for real. And Anna is an angelic woman who devotes most of her life to sick kids. She could live in Krakow and receive homage but instead she works for people nobody wants to help and devotes herself to charity’.
‘When we were recording, the sound studio was being renovated. We had to record in a small booth with just over one square metre of area. When Anna Dymna and Marek Kondrat entered that booth, they were squeezed in that small area. They cracked jokes and laughed, and Anna started singing songs with obscene lyrics by Wiesław Dymny but on hearing ‘stop, recording on’ they got really serious. This is how one of the scenes I find most important in the film was born: the meeting of my parents in the land of death’.
Tadeusz Nalepa, a meeting with the Master
As a teenager, I was a fan of Tadeusz Nalepa. I loved his music. I knew that Nalepa did not play the best in the world, nor did he sing the best in the world. But he had the key to my heart and my emotions.
I wanted to meet him. It was the turn of the 1980s and all I knew was that Nalepa was from Rzeszów. I decided to call the telephone exchange and ask to be put through to Tadeusz Nalepa. I did not know his number. A lady from telephone exchange suggested that she should connect me with Rzeszów, and maybe they would know. Two hours later my phone rang: a lady from the Rzeszów exchange informed me that Nalepa no longer lived there as he had moved to Warsaw. ‘I'll connect you with his father,’ she said and switched the cables.
When Tadeusz Nalepa's father answered the phone, I lied I was a film school student shooting a film about Tadeusz. Several days later, Tadeusz's father called back and gave me his son's address.
The next day I got up at 4 a.m. and headed to the train station. I went to Józefów by train, then walked a few kilometres through the forest to eventually find Tadeusz Nalepa's house. But he was not there.
Tadeusz's house was in the middle of the forest. I was tired but refused to give up so I lay down in the forest next to his house to take a nap. Suddenly, like in a dream, I heard the voices of Nalepa and Mira Kubasińska. I thought, ‘Oh, man, I don't know this song.’ And suddenly it occurred to me that these were their real voices. Tadeusz was opening the gate when I jumped out of the forest. I scared them both. Two metres tall, I was a big guy with afro hair garnished with leaves and twigs. I must have looked like a Yeti. That is how we met.
First, Tadeusz was my idol, then he became my mentor. Meeting him was a lesson in independence and internal honesty. He showed me that you can live by your art and by your own principles.
The design from the Polish People's Republic en vogue again
In the 1990s, just after the political transformation, everything that could evoke the times of communist Poland was rejected. Even the design of those times began to be considered as an insignificant symbol of the happily bygone era, worth neither protection nor description. A dozen or so years later, when the emotions connected with regaining liberty subsided and the first generation born after 1989 reached maturity, the view on that heritage began to change. As soon as it was possible to break away from the political context, the designs of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s turned out to include objects of high utility and aesthetic value. All the more so because in those days, unlike today, the designs of well-known and reputable designers were mass-produced so they had a chance to reach many households. In a very short time, everyday objects, such as furniture, glass and ceramic tableware, or textiles designed in communist Poland were labelled iconic and became objects of desire, even though just a moment back they had landed in rubbish bins or were sold for pennies. This outbreak of interest in design from half a century ago resulted not only in an increase in the price of all items from that era but also in better knowledge about it. The number of publications on the history of design in the second half of the 20th century began to rise, and exhibitions presenting the ‘icons’ of the design of that time enjoyed great popularity. In 2017, the National Museum in Warsaw finally opened the Gallery of Polish Design, thus introducing the 20th-century design to the museum canon.
It is worth noting that this rediscovery of the qualities of design from the second half of the past century is a common experience of all post-Soviet countries. The course of time mitigated political reluctance and helped to see the real charm of the designs of that epoch.
Slide projector
‘I still remember how it smelled. The bulb warmed up the celluloid and the ebonite casing gave off a specific scent’.
The slide projector was a ticket to another world. Mom turned off the light in a small room that was very ordinary, turned on the projector and suddenly I left the mundane world to find myself in an extraordinary one.
Intro.
In Kill it and Leave this Town Mariusz Wilczyński takes us on an intimate journey through the world of memory, sentiments, and recollections. His protagonist, the alter-ego of the director, tries to leave behind the despair after losing his loved ones. He escapes to a safe land of memories, where time stands still, and all his relatives are still alive. Here he finds the heroes of old times and artefacts of his childhood. He returns to his hometown and the communist era filled with its absurdities and charms.
We follow Mariusz Wilczyński to return to a world that no longer exists, and together with him we create a map of his memory and recollections.
Actors
Anna Dymna (born 1951)—an icon of Polish theatre and cinema. She has played in more than 70 films, becoming part of the history of Polish cinematography. In 2003, she established the Mimo Wszystko Foundation, which provides assistance to the sick and the disabled. She plays the mother about whom Mariusz Wilczyński says:
Marek Kondrat (born 1950)—actor, director, and sciptwriter. He has starred in nearly a hundred films, including films directed by Wajda, Koterski, Majewski, Pasikowski, Marczewski, and Kutz. in 2010, at the height of his popularity in Poland, he retired from acting. In Kill it he plays Wilczyński's father, a great absent-minded director.
Irena Kwiatkowska (1912–2011)—a legend of the Polish stage, TV series, and cinema. A characteristic actress who won the hearts of millions of Poles. With her extraordinary sense of humour, she had a career as a dramatic and cabaret actress. Thanks to her role in the series entitled Czterdziestolatek, she became a symbol of the so-called ‘working woman.’
Jan Ciszewski (1930–1982)—his voice told Poles about the greatest sport achievements of the communist times, and it is his voice that comes from the protagonist's little radio. A journalist and sports commentator, Jan Ciszewski became a part of pop culture in communist Poland. His football match broadcasts, like the one from Wembley in 1973, are well remembered by many Poles.
Tomasz Stańko (1942–2018)—jazzman, master of the trumpet, composer, one of the most original jazz musicians in Europe. He performed with the greatest legends like Komeda, Tanner, Peacock, and Holland. Stańko recorded about forty albums and composed music for forty films, and his trumpet resounded in the opening title sequence of the Homeland series. No wonder that even while train reaches the “Wisełka” station in Kill it, he reminds the passenger of taking the trumpet from the train compartment.
Daniel Olbrychski (born 1945)—actor, one of the greatest stars in Polish cinema. Andrzej Wajda's favourite actor, he rose to fame playing in patriotic blockbusters. He has starred in over 160 films, including Polish, Russian and American productions.
Barbara Krafftówna (born 1928)—theatre, film, and cabaret actress. She became one of the legends of Polish cinema playing in How to be Loved by Wojciech Jerzy Has. Krafftówna created unforgettable characters in The Codes and The Saragossa Manuscript by the same director, as well as Ashes and Diamonds by Wajda or Nobody's Calling by Kazimierz Kutz.
Zbigniew Rybczyński (born 1949)—director, cinematographer, multimedia artist. A winner of the Academy Award for best short animated film (in 1983 for Tango), a revolutionary and pioneer of Polish animation. He created music videos for artists such as Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Chuck Mangione, and Lou Reed. In the field of animation, he gained notoriety as a tireless experimenter expanding the traditional language of animated cinema.
Tadeusz Nalepa (1943–2007)—guitar player, singer-songwriter. One of the most important artists of Polish popular music of the 20th century. Founding member of Breakout band, Nalepa is considered one of the most prominent figures for the development of Polish rock scene. In his later songs, he combined his blues-rock formula with elements of jazz, funk, and ethnic music. His pieces make up the film soundtrack.
Przekrój—The New Yorker from behind the Iron Curtain
In communist Poland, it was one of the few magazines that resisted political indoctrination, achieved through its entertaining and humorous character. Established in 1945 by Marian Eile, a journalist, satirist, and painter, Przekrój achieved a circulation of over 700,000 copies in the 1970s.
In the grey reality of the Polish People's Republic, Przekrój was a window with a view of the world—it described world literature, fashion trends, and modern art. The key element of the magazine was the crossword puzzle, which first appeared in the January 1956 issue and accompanied Przekroj until its end. Even after the magazine's editorial office moved to Warsaw and its format underwent repeated changes, the crossword puzzle was one of its most important elements and a testimony to its intellectual heritage.
Neon signs in communist Poland
In the 1950s, when many Polish cities looked very gloomy, still struggling to rise from wartime ruins, the state authorities decided to introduce neon signs into urban spaces. Combining the functions of advertising, information, and decoration, the colourful lighting was supposed to improve the appearance of Polish streets, introducing modern and dynamic chic. In the following years, the fashion for gas-filled glass tubes arranged in patterns, drawings and inscriptions gained in popularity. In many locations, the plan to ‘neonise’ Polish cities brought good results: in the archival photos from the 1960s and 1970s one can see that the downtown streets of Warsaw, Katowice and Łódź shine with meticulously designed, light-emitting images like the ones from world metropolises.
The neon sign that crowned the industrial building of the clothing industry union called Zjednoczenie Przemysłu Odzieżowego has also been etched in Mariusz Wilk’s memory, who made it one of the important elements of his film. Bartosz Stępień, a researcher of Łódź neon signs and author of a book devoted to them, admits that in Łódź many luminous images had an informative and decorative function rather than an advertising one. They appeared not only over boutiques in downtown streets but also on the walls of factories and facilities in industrial districts, becoming an extremely important object in the inhabitants' visual memory. This is probably the reason why efforts to renovate the most famous and recognizable neon signs in Łódź have been ongoing for several years now. In 2005, a neon sign depicting a cartoon character, Gąska Balbinka, returned to Więckowskiego Street. A cat with a ball of wool which advertised a once existing haberdashery was hanged anew on a tenement in Legionów Street. The new railway station will probably be decorated with a neon sign from the no longer existing building of the Łódź Fabryczna station. The luminous signs are again becoming a part of the cityscape.
HISTORY and communist Poland:
Shortage economy
It was the reason of all the misery. Although this term, introduced by János Kornai, was not coined until the mid-1980s, in the former Eastern Block countries the shortage economy developed much earlier.
Behind the Iron Curtain, the communist authorities wanted to control everything from agriculture and industry, to the distribution and sales of products, to the labour market. This resulted in constant shortages. In the communist reality, basic commodities were available for ordinary citizens only with difficulty, and in the face of shortage of goods, the authorities had to introduce a special rationing system.
Ration stamps—your shopping ticket
In communist Poland, ration stamps became the symbols of the rationing system. Ration stamps or ration cards were vouchers allowing the purchase of a given type of goods. They were granted by representatives of the authorities and their allocation was conditioned by various factors, such as the size of one's family, living conditions, and even one's profession.
The first product to be rationed in communist Poland was sugar. In 1976, there was a shortage of raw materials in the country, so the authorities introduced a system of sales regulations. A few years later, with the deepening social and economic crisis, rationing gradually included ever more goods: meat, butter, groats, rice, flour, as well as soap, powders, cigarettes, alcohol, and petrol.
Due to all those restrictions, ration stamps soon became subject to barter exchange.
Centralised fishery management
One of the communist authorities' responses to economic crises was to centralise the economy. This was supposed to solve all the problems with shortages. Despite usually having the opposite effect, centralisation gave the party activists a false sense of control.
Fish centres were one example of that centralisation trend. They were established in the 1950s to supply fresh fish to citizens all over the country, including in towns hundreds of kilometres away from the Polish coast. Since 1957, the centralised union of fisheries (Zjednoczenie Centrala Rybna) supplied fish from seaside processing plants to seventeen fish centres scattered all over the country. For those who grew up in communist Poland, such centres were among the most characteristic points on the city map.
RUCH
The union of fisheries was not the only commercial management centre headed by the communist authorities. RUCH, the state-owned chain of kiosks, was much bigger. It was launched long before the communist regime in Poland: in 1918, the Polish Society of Rail Bookhouses (Polskie Towarzystwo Księgarni Kolejowych RUCH), commonly known as RUCH, was established, and several years later became the only press distributor in Poland.
After World War II, RUCH became part of the state apparatus, together with Polish post and telegraphs, and in 1973 it was incorporated in the Prasa-Książka-Ruch Workers' Publishing Cooperative and became the largest retail chain in Poland. The tiny RUCH-owned kiosks sold newspapers, books, cosmetics, and hygienic products in communist Poland.
RUCH managed to survive the fall of the communist regime and, although it has been struggling with market problems ever since its characteristic kiosks are still present in Polish cities.
The all-powerful saleswomen
The extraordinary importance of the RUCH kiosks in the times of the communist shortage of goods was depicted in Stanisław Bareja's film titled Teddy Bear, an iconic comedy mocking the absurdities of communist Poland. In one scene, a resolute salesgirl confronted by customers says, ‘Sir, this is a RUCH kiosk, I have meat here,’ which became one of the most popular quotes in the Polish cinema.
In other words, in communist Poland, saleswomen were downright almighty. They decided who would buy a given product, who would leave the counter empty-handed. They could always do the customers they favoured a service by putting away a scarce product, whether it was a piece of cold meat or a modern vacuum cleaner.
It was in the shops that the policy of transferring full power into the hands of the people was best realised. That microsystem made the saleswomen a privileged class in their own way.
To understand it fully, it should be remembered that in communist Poland shop shelves were bleakly empty. When certain goods were to be delivered, people queued in front of the shop in lines that nowadays can only be seen before the premieres of limited Nike series and the new iPhone.
In communist Poland, in order to buy one's dream product, one had to queue for hours or even days, which gave rise to a new professional group called stacze, freely translated as ‘standers’, who held a place in shop queues for a certain fee.
‘The Tuberculous Spring’ or Polish-style soda water
Among the emblems of the communist era in Poland, street soda fountains are the most iconic. Characteristic trolleys with an attached gas cylinder were present in Polish cities from the 1950s. They were operated by street vendors who produced and sold soda water. There were two options available: pure carbonated water and a more expensive version with fruit syrup. In the country where Coca-Cola was considered an imperialist beverage and orangeade was a costly treat, sparkling water dispensers became part of the urban landscape.
Back in the 1950s, water from street soda fountains was jokingly called ‘Gruźliczanka’, which could be translated as ‘the Tuberculous Spring’—all because of the peculiar hygiene accompanying the sales of the drink. It was served in reusable glasses only rinsed with cold water before it was given to the next customer. Nonetheless, street soda fountains did not contribute to any epidemic or public health collapse.
They were produced until the 1980s. The DOMGOS factory in Ruda Śląska released not only mobile soda makers but also their stationary versions. These self-service units were available mainly in catering outlets.
After years of popularity, street soda fountains became obsolete. They were replaced by handy soda siphons, that is small devices which enabled everyone to make carbonated water at home.
Battery-powered radio
Among the greatest achievements of socialist technology, electronic gadgets were of particular importance. Among them, the portable radio held a prominent place: it was the dream object of most young people. In the 1960s, the pocket ‘Koliber’ radio was a technological innovation and a social entertainment. A decade later they made way for portable tape players produced by Polish UNITRA, under the licence of Germany’s Grundig, which years later were simply called ‘Kasprzak’, named after the Kasprzak production plant where they were manufactured.
7. Glasses with metal holders
It is impossible to imagine the history of communist Poland without characteristic glasses in metal holders in which hot drinks were served. At a time when cups were a sign of snobbism and mugs were yet to come, glasses in metal holders prevailed on Polish tables.
They were a remnant of a pre-war tradition in which decorative metal holders were commonly used by the middle class. In communist Poland, they were an ersatz luxury: made of decoratively cut metals, they were supposed to make tableware look good and, most of all, protect the hands of drinkers from the temperature of glasses filled with boiling-hot water.
Frania, the washing machine of communist childhood
For several decades, it was a companion in the everyday life of millions of Poles. Before the first domestic automatic washing machines were introduced on the market in the 1980s, Frania was the equipment of every household. This cylindrical washing machine was manufactured in different places, initially in Metal Products Works in Myszków, and Kielce that also produced SHL motorcycles, military equipment, and STAR truck cabs.
Although technologically different from western drum-type washing machines, it was very popular. Especially as some of the models were equipped with internal water heaters and a wringer made of two squeezing rubberized rollers.
In the 1980s, Frania started to be replaced by the Polar automatic washing machine that resembled modern washing machines. Frania disappeared from Polish flats but not from the market—in the second decade of the 21st century it was sold to African countries and used for industrial purposes.
Phone, a plastic object of desire
In communist Poland, it was regarded as a symbol of luxury or at least an indicator of social status. The phone was the dream of many but the privilege of few. While at the beginning of the 20th century Warsaw was ahead of Berlin, Moscow, Paris, and London in terms of the number of telephones per 100,000 inhabitants, when the Iron Curtain closed Poland became one of the worst-connected countries in Europe.
In the 1970s, when there were 62 phones per 100 inhabitants in the USA, 59 in Sweden, and 15 in Czechoslovakia, in communist Poland there were only 6. To cover the fact that Poland lagged far behind other countries, the authorities were looking for various solutions. New telephone exchanges were built in large cities and thousands of new telephone boxes were put on the streets.
For most Poles, however, a private phone was still out of reach. It was a rarity especially in rural areas: in an average Polish village, the local leader or priest had a telephone to be used by the whole community.
The reason for the underdeveloped telecommunications was not to the undersupply of the product itself, a classic problem in communist Poland. In that case it was the lack of infrastructure that would allow private users to connect to telephone lines. And although the Telkom-RWT production plants in Radom manufactured telephones with flowery-sounding names, such as Orchid, Tulip, Aster, Buttercup, and Iris, for most households it remained an unattainable object of desire.
Pewex, the bay of luxury
In the grey reality of communist Poland, PEWEX stores were enclaves of luxury, a shy whiff of the West. PEWEX short for Przedsiębiorstwo Eksportu Wewnętrznego, or Internal Export Company, which was the name of the state-owned enterprise supervising the chain of retail outlets, supplied customers with exclusive goods which were difficult to obtain or even unavailable in normal distribution, such as western clothing, toys, alcohols, and even cars. All that without customs duties and sales tax.
So where was the catch? In the payment methods. In PEWEX shops, only foreign currencies or foreign exchange vouchers were accepted. Due to the poor condition of the domestic economy, the communist authorities could not exchange Polish currency on international markets. The PEWEX chain was therefore a way to obtain foreign currency from the citizens.
Over time, PEWEX shops became a symbol of luxury. One of the unofficial spin-offs of the PEWEX chain was the emergence of a peculiar profession of ‘cinkciarz’ (‘money changer’), who bought and sold foreign currencies. This semi-legal business was dominated by people connected with the security forces and the authorities turned a blind eye to their activities.
Dance clubs, or nightlife in the city
There was no shortage of shady characters in other enclaves of luxury in communist Poland. These were the dance clubs in which the nightlife of the big cities took place.
The Kongresowa and Adria clubs in Warsaw, Casanova and Agawa in Łódź, Lublin's Europa were the famous cafes of communist Poland, where the social elite gathered. At night they often turned into nightclubs teeming with life until the small hours, and some of them even offered striptease. Guests could enjoy western entertainment music and foreign liquors served from under the counter until dawn.
However, certain etiquette was in place: entry was only allowed with a tie and brawling guests were thrown out of the premises.
The unique aura of these places inspired many artists. Jerzy Gruza, a director and dance club regular, in the series Alternatywy 4 made one of the female characters work in a nightclub, and several decades later the charm of communist discos was recreated by Agnieszka Smoczyńska in her famous film The Lure.
The Baltic Sea, or holidays for the common people
In communist Poland, most Poles knew no other sea: going to the sea meant going to the Baltic Sea. Seaside resorts emerged and were popular for decades. Towns such as Łeba, Kołobrzeg, Jastarnia, Sopot, Międzyzdroje, and Krynica Morska are still some of the favourite holiday destinations for many Poles. Summer camps for children were also organised there.
With the growing number of passengers travelling to the seaside, the Polish State Railways started to run additional trains and operate certain rail links only during summer holidays. Years later the names of those trains became symbols of holiday relaxation.
For a long time, the Baltic Sea was a luxury that Poles could afford. Those who were better off or had contacts among party activists and communist politicians could also go on trips abroad, especially to Lake Balaton and the Golden Sands in Varna on the Black Sea coast.
Cruise to a better world
Just as the Baltic, the Hungarian Lake Balaton or the Bulgarian Golden Sands were a kind of temporary escape from the grey reality of the ‘people's democracy’, so the transatlantic cruises became symbols of escape forever. The big passenger ships allowed thousands of Poles to leave their homeland during the communist era. They made it possible to change a tourist trip into life-long emigration, as in the case of Adam Holender, a Polish cinematographer best known for his work on Midnight Cowboy, who left Poland on a transatlantic ship to go to Hollywood.
Jerzy Gruza, a film director, author of Tele-Batory Cocktail, an entertainment TV show broadcast from one of the transatlantic ships, praised the qualities of these units in this way:
‘Years ago, Batory, a flag ship, was a symbol of the great world, America, travel abroad, impeccable service, cuisine, five o'clock dancing, lavish dinners at the Captain's Ball. In Poland, all a citizen was offered was a ‘milk bar’, a canteen, and empty shelves at the butcher's.’
Transatlantic travel became legendary, also thanks to flashiness of the ships themselves. Launched in 1936, Batory was the most famous one, and fully operational until the turn of the 1970s. That luxurious vessel was both a cruise ship and an art gallery, but above all, a showcase of communist Poland on international waters.