Widok Memories of the vanished people in Černivci, L’viv and Wrocław — an issue for urban planning

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Memories of the vanished people in Černivci, L´viv and Wrocław — an issue for urban planning

Background and main research questions

Th is article aims to discuss the role and practice of urban planning in three East and Central European cities, hit by war genocide and forced migration during and aft er World War II, in relation to memories of earlier urban life and population, refl ected in the city environment. Th e article refers to an on-going, interdisciplinary project, also including Wrocław¹ in Poland, dealing with three main questions of relations between the built environment and the memory of the vanished population groups:²

(1) Th e built environment as a refl ection of the earlier urban life of the vanished population. Th is is mainly studied by inventories on sight, archive documents, old photos and maps and by interviewing old persons who have personal memories of interwar, war and early post-war time in the cities.

(2) Interviews and surveys among the present population about their knowledge of, interest in and attitudes to the vanished population groups and their refl ections in the urban environment.

1 Former German Breslau. In this city 95% of the population was forced to leave for the dimi- nished Germany aft er World War II.

2 Th is contribution is based on the achievements of the fi rst half of a research project “Memo- ry treatment and urban planning with reference to the vanished population groups in Chişinău, Černivci, L´viv and Wrocław”. Th e main focus of the project is to investigate how the urban life, the vanished population and the city environment before and during World War II were remembered in the communist and post-communist time and treated in urban planning. Th e starting point for the project is a study of the very subject of memory management which is the physical and social structure of the cities in the 1930s and earlier and during World War II.

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(3) Offi cial treatment of the heritage and memories of the vanished population in urban planning and preservation policy, as well as in museums, tourist guides and other city presentations — in communist and post-communist years. How is this heritage treated politically and culturally? What is highlighted, what is concealed and what is ignored?

Th is article focuses on the built environment and its treatment in urban planning in relation to the memory of the vanished population groups.

The choice of cities

Th e three cities analysed are L’viv and Černivci³ in Ukraine and Wrocław in Poland. Aft er World War II, L´viv (Lwów, Lemberg) was ceded to the Soviet Union from Poland and Černivci (Cernăuţi, Czernowitz) from Romania. Wrocław (Bres- lau) was ceded to Poland from Germany. In addition to the radical demographic changes during and immediately aft er the war, the new national contexts and a profound new, communist, societal system implied entirely new basic conditions, very much aff ecting urban planning. Planning was a crucial part of the new national, political and social projects, while the remaining old buildings and city structures represented the previous order. But still today, in all the three cities studied, old urban environments remain, largely representing a lost population and a lost political and national context.

Th is article gives an overview of war destruction as well as a preserved built heritage, representing the vanished population. It includes investigations of the fi rst urban renewal planning in the perspective of memory treatment aft er the war and also roughly during the decades up to the present time. Today there is a growing interest in and understanding of historical monuments and cultural values associated with the lost population, but also confl icting interests and opin- ions with respect to this memory.

Th e Jewish heritage and memories are especially highlighted in L’viv and Černivci, having an evident signifi cance and connection with the urban environment in these cities, before as well as during the war. Wrocław (Breslau) also had many Jewish inhabitants considerably infl uencing the city’s development and environment. Apart from this the Polish heritage obviously is central in L’viv as well as the combined German, Romanian and Polish heritage in Černivci and the German heritage in Wrocław.

3 Or Chernivtsi in the standard English transcription of Cyrillic letters. I have consequently chosen to use the “Czech” way of transcription of Cyrillic letters, because it is closer to the original and to Slavonic spelling traditions, and because it is frequently used in academic writing, re- gardless of the language of the text (English, German, French etc.).

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Urban environment as a historical narrative

Urban planning is an expression of the current societal system and of economic and political power that can be strong enough to carry out extensive and rapid changes. It is sometimes directly used as a means to express political and economic power in relation to the previous structures, e.g. by erasing parts of history regarded as disruptive to the current rulers’ own historical self-image. Th e aim can be to spread forgetfulness of the periods of negative charge. Financial interests may cause demolitions simply because historic structures are perceived as obstacles to profi t or due to the lack of knowledge of and interest in the historical heritage. Urban planning ideologies diverge between visionary ideas and pragmatic improvements and between rationalistic and romantic concepts. Th ey refl ect diff erent attitudes towards history and future. Historic ties in the urban environment can be studied as diff erent environment layers⁴.

In spite of political diff erences, there were evident parallels between urban planning ideals in the communist countries and non-totalitarian Europe, with the exception of Stalinist classicism. Th e dominant trend aft er the war was the functionalist and modernist movement, based on a positivist scientifi c view, rationalism, strong development optimism and a belief in the possibilities of modern technique. Historic and cultural heritage was more or less regarded as an obstacle to development.

In war-damaged areas it was close at hand to construct radically new urban structures, according to the new political and ideological aims. Practical and economic considerations sometimes led to preservation, although not always in line with ideological aims. Th e diff erence between ideology and practice is mirrored in many plans not implemented⁵.

Th e analyses of genius loci and existing values of architecture, urban image, cultural heritage and sites of memories have since the 1980s generally had an increasing signifi cance in urban planning in many European countries⁶. Th ere has lately, however, also appeared a resistance and criticism among architects against adapting to the special feature and identity of the site. Th is has been regarded as limitation of architectural freedom. It expresses a belief that it is impossible

4 An interesting example is the thesis Monument og Niche by Carsten Juel Christansen, descri- bing how diff erent structures, representing diff erent historical phases and cultures meet and cross each other in the urban environment (Juel Christiansen 1985).

5 Th e reconstruction of the older Polish urban environments in Warsaw and Gdańsk are exceptional, being associated with a national policy to restore the Polish heritage. However, in the former German city of Breslau/Wrocław there was a rather similar policy for the rehabilitation of historic urban environments, although this in fact concerned the German heritage. It was legiti- mized by its connection with the also existing Polish history of the city.

6 A basic work is Ch. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture.

New York: Rizzoli, 1980.

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to work in a creative way and “express our time” if historical values are to be respected. But exactly this can be seen as a challenge, also aff ecting the cities studied here: To interpret the special quality of the site, consider the surrounding cultural heritage and embedded memories and still contribute something new.

Černivci — Cernăuţi — Czernowitz Historical background

The period up to World War I

Th e 600-year-old city is situated where traditional Romanian (Moldovan) and Ukrainian (Ruthenian) settlement areas meet and overlap. Aft er being under Ottoman suzerainty from the 16th century, the small Moldovan town experi- enced a rapid growth under Austrian rule 1774–1918, especially as a capital of the crown land Bukovina aft er 1849. In this development as a contemporary Euro- pean capital, as a “small Vienna”, Černivci/Cernăuţi/Czernowitz was a melting pot of cultures, receiving Germans, Poles, Armenians and Jews and other settlers, with a remarkably high level of cultural, academic and commercial life. In 1910 the population was 87,000, 33% Jewish (this share increased to 47% in 1919), 17% Ukrainians, 17% Poles, 15% Romanians and 14% Germans. Th ere were also Armenians, Czechs, Hungarians, Greeks and others. No ethnic group was in majority. German was a kind of lingua franca, a mother tongue of around 40% of the population, including modern, Europe-oriented “emancipated” Jews, who had a crucial position in the city within business such as industry, craft s, trade, hotel and restaurant; as well as among professors, lawyers, doctors and artists. Th ey fi tted well into a multi-ethnic empire, regarding the emperor as a protector. All of the city’s fi ve major nationalities were politically represented in the municipality, the Crown-land and in Vienna. Th ey also had their own palaces of culture.

Th ese were also oft en visited by other ethnicities. A tolerant Geist von Czernowitz developed, making the city a world of its own, a way of life, a dream⁷. However, there were also Romanian and Ukrainian feelings that their lands had been taken over by foreign people⁸.

7 Among the promi nent writers of this period were Romanians Mihai Eminescu, Vasile Alec- sandri and Constantin Stamati-Ciurea, Ukrainians Yuriy Fedk ovych, Olha Kobyliansk a, Osyp Makovei and Ivan Franko and German-Jewish Karl-Emil Franzos. Th e Romanian composer Ci- prian Porumbescu studied in Czernowitz. Many artists and scientists were related to the city during the decades around 1900, e.g. the musicologist Eusebius Mandyczewski, the painter Alfred Off ner, the lawyer Eugen Ehrlich (“Father of Sociology of Law”), historians Raimund Friedrich Kaindl and Ion Nistor, the psy choanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter and the theatre historian Joseph Gregor.

8 Cfr. a text from 1905 by the Romanian historian N. Iorga, Czernowitz (in Rychlo 2004).

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From the old core, the town gradually grew uphill southwards, towards the Austria Platz, about 105 m higher than the Prut River and 70 m higher than the old city centre at Springbrunnenplatz. Monumental buildings were erected, such as Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Evangelical churches, the Great Jewish Temple, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, the Musikvereinsgebäude, the University, the City Hall, the City Th eatre (Fellner & Helmer) and the railway station. Th e largest complex was the residence of the Greek Ortho dox Metropolitan of Austria and Dalmatia (architect: Joseph Hlávka). Among the outstanding ex amples of Jugendstil and Secession architecture is Bukowiner Sparkassen gebäude (Hubert Gessner, pupil of Otto Wagner). Stately hotels, commercial and offi ce buildings lined the pop ular corso Herrengasse and other main streets. Rapid development and a strong belief in the future was abruptly stopped by the outbreak of World War I and the collapse of the empire. Suddenly, the base of Czernowitz was gone and the city did not fi t into a new pattern of Eu ropean national states. Czernowitz came to Romania in 1918, and the question was whether a new regime aft er 1918 would accept the city’s unique character.

Population and urban life in Cernăuţi in the inter-war years

In interwar Cernăuţi streets were renamed and Romanian was made the only offi cial language. Hauptstraße was renamed Strada Regina Maria. In spite of growing Romanian nationalism, however, much of the Geist von Czernowitz could survive. In the 1930s a rich German Jewish literary environment developed.

Th e Jewish theatre Scala from 1920 was a precursor of modernist architecture.

In the 1930s modernism was parallel with the Romanian nationalist romantic Brâncoveanu style. Interestingly enough, the Romanian national movement used both styles, e.g. the Sfântul Nicolae church in Brâncoveanu style and the modernist Romanian palace of culture, both erected in 1938. Around 1930 the city had 111,000 inhabitants⁹.

Before World War II, Jews quite overwhelmingly populated the old lower town. Th eir most common professions were merchants, shopkeepers, tailors, fur- riers, carpenters, other craft smen and diff erent kinds of teachers and clerks. In the upper parts of the city — also dominated by Jews — there were more lawyers, physicians, artists, university teachers and owners of restaurants, cafés or pubs.

A comparison with 1914 shows that in 1936 there was a certain Romanian emancipation. Th e German population to a large extent lived in the western suburban hills, with large gardens for cultivating fruits and wine grapes¹⁰.

9 Aft er Poland’s partition at the end of 1939, some thousand Polish citizens, mainly Jews, escaped to Cernăuţi.

10 Digitalised address books of 1914 and 1936, available at http://czernowitz.blogpot.com, give an overview of working inhabitants with names, addresses and professions. Archive documents show several property owners in diff erent streets at then Soviet expropriation in autumn 1940.

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Cernăuţi/Černivci under initial Soviet rule 1940–1941

During one year of Soviet rule — June 28, 1940–July 5, 1941 — many of the traditional social structures were destroyed. Society was reorganised together with the arrest and deportation of thousands of persons regarded as inimical or hostile to the new regime. Th e Soviet threat and German promises and propa- ganda made Germans leave. Th e new border between North and South Buko- vina separated many families. Russian and Ukrainian were the two new offi cial languages and other ethnic groups had to accustom themselves to the Cyrillic alphabet. Streets were renamed and Romanian monuments removed. Th ere was also school education in Yiddish, but not Romanian, German or Polish. Th e fi rst German-Romanian attack against Černivci came on June 22, but still on June 27 the local Soviets could celebrate the fi rst anniversary of “Th e relief of Bessarabia and North Bukovina from the yoke of the Romanian boyars”¹¹.

Cernăuţi/Černivci under Romanian rule 1941–1944 under Nazi German support On the very fi rst day of Romanian-German power, the Temple was set on fi re and the leading mem bers of the Jewish community executed. For a period SS with the help of “Einsatzgruppe D” and Romanian soldiers systematically executed thousands of Jewish men. On October 11, a ghetto was sealed off in the old Mol- dovan “lower” city, with the former Synagogengasse, Springbrunnenplatz and the Jew ish cemetery. Some 50,000 persons were located under hard sanitary conditions in an area, earlier housing 5,000. Very soon, deporta tions to Transnistria began. According to Yad Vashem, 28,000 people were deported already in Nov- ember.

Mayor Tra ian Popovici, still keeping some “Czernowitz spirit”, opposed to anti-Semitism, delim iting the ghetto and deportations. Until he was deposed from his position in spring 1942, he man aged to distribute special Popovici-Autorisa- tionen, allowing 19,000 Jews, including a poet Paul Celan, to leave the ghetto and avoid deportation, because they were needed in the city. According to Yad Vash- em, he saved lives of about 16,500 persons. Th en, deportations resumed. In June 1942, 5,000 Jews, including Paul Celan’s parents, were deported to Transnistria, where the majority perished. An ethnic Polish lawyer Grzegorz Szymanowicz, consul for Chile, saved lives of another 1,000 Jews by issuing Chilean passports (Massan 2000). Several Holocaust survivors from Cernăuţi have testifi ed to this diffi cult time in books¹².

11 Citation from the local communist party committee, in O. Masan, Czernowitz in Vergan- genheit und Gegenwart (in: Heppner 2000) (Translated from German by the author of this article).

12 For example Julius Scherzer, Edith Silbermann, Rose Ausländer, Ilona Shmuely, Zvi Harry Likwornik, Hedwig Brenner and Sidi Gross. In the book Ghosts of Home, Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer describe the memories of Marianne’s parents of the ghetto and Transnistria.

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Soviet Černivci after 1944

On March 29, 1944 the Soviet army recaptured Cernăuţi aft er battles resulting in 1,500 dead and 900 captured. Th e Sovietisation process resumed. A transfer of Poles to Poland was organized. Almost all Germans left in the fi rst Soviet period and many Romanians escaped to Romania within its new borders. Some 75–80%

of the population vanished, but the built environment remained relatively un- scathed¹³. Most of the conductive layers of culture, science and business were gone, such as the cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic city, and der Geist von Czernowitz.

Russian and Ukrainian were the offi cial languages, while German and Romanian were not viable any more. In spite of the Holocaust, surviving Jews mostly still kept to German language and culture. Th ey felt totally lost and left , when possible, for Romania and later Palestine or even Germany or Austria. Very few remained, among them Rosa Zuckermann and Matthias Zwilling, presented in a documen- tary fi lm in 1999¹⁴.

In the fi rst post-war years, around 50,000 persons from Bukovina were deported eastward, including many original Ukrainian inhabitants. Th us the number of persons with local ties grew even smaller. Rapid immigration from other parts of the Soviet Union began, and the city had in 1959 already 150,000 inhabitants. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, 20% of them were Jews, but mostly without any roots in Bukovina. In Soviet Bukovina of 1989 66.5% were Ukrain- ians, 17.8% Russians and 7.5% Romanians.

Urban planning and memory treatment in Černivci

Built environment in Černivci immediately after the war and continued Soviet urban planning

Th e former Jewish National House was turned into the Soviet Palace of Cul- ture and the former Romanian National House, seized by the SS in 1941, was made the local headquarter of the Red Army, aft er 1991 of the Ukrainian Army.

Most churches were closed or given a new use. Th e Greek Orthodox Cathedral was used for industrial and agricultural exhibitions; the large church hall was divided into two fl oors. Th e Jesuit church was also divided into several fl oors and used for archives. Th e Metropolitan Palace was turned into a university building.

In 1959 the remaining parts of the Israeli temple were reconstructed into the cinema October.

13 During the years 1944–46 18,000 Jews were allowed to leave North Bukovina. For a few days in 1946, former Romanian citizens could leave for Romania. Many of them arrived in Ro- mania completely destitute, having been deprived of their money and possessions by Soviet border guards.

14 Th e fi lm Frau Zuckermann und Herr Zwilling by Volker Koepp.

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Th e Soviet tourist map of the city from the 1970s is greatly simplifi ed with incorrect propor tions, making it quite diffi cult to fi nd one’s way outside the main streets. Strada Regina Maria was renamed Lenin Street. Th e former Austria-Platz Square/Piaţa Ghica Vodă became the Soviet Square. Th e Romanians renamed Franzensgasse Strada 11 Noiembrie, aft er their takeover in 1918, and the Soviets renamed it June 28 Street aft er their takeover in 1940. Th is name is, remarkably enough, still used. Former Herrengasse/Strada Iancu Flondor in the Soviet years was named aft er a local Ukrainian writer Olha Kobylianska. Her monument, replacing that of Mihai Eminescu (replacing, in turn, that of Friedrich Schiller), was erected in front of the Municipal Th eatre, also named aft er her. At the former Ringplatz/Piaţa Unirii a Lenin Monument was erected.

War destruction was limited to small areas, e.g. in Post Street and in the northern side of the central square. Th e main damage concerned the inhabitants, not the buildings, although several houses in the “lower town” were in a deterior- ated condition. Most old buildings were practically useful to the newcomers aft er the war, without a need to replace them with new buildings. Opposite the former Temple a corner building in the Socialist Realist style was erected, rather well adapted to the location, as well as some new buildings in Post Street. Th e north side of the central square remained a non-built-up area. Th e adjacent fi rewalls were used as an exposition wall for political placards and posters. Today, the area still remains without buildings, and a monument of Taras Ševčenko is erected there.

In Soviet time, urban planning mostly focused on the city’s expansion towards the south. Commercial and cultural activities, as well as the largest hotel were located there. Th e old city centre lost some of its importance, and especially the old Moldovan lower town became a neglected area on the northern edge of town. Still, many important city functions, such as university, City Th eatre, Town Hall and the most popular street: Kobylianska street — made pedestrian — remained in the former Austrian city centre. In Perestroika time and in the fi rst years of independence there was a thorough inventory of buildings in the historic city centre, classifi ed in relation to their architectural and historical signifi cance.

Much attention is paid to the Austrian heritage of the “upper town”, and less to the “lower”, old Moldovan town. It is also evident that the inventory was strictly architectural, not taking into account the social and historical aspects.

Contemporary urban planning and discussions on the treatment of memory in the urban environment

Aft er Ukrain ian independence, a General Plan for the development of Černivci was presented in 1993, revised in 1995. A new thoroughfare, not yet implemented, was planned west of the city centre, to relieve the old main street. Th e General plan gives frameworks for saving the old city centre, but the blocks along Henri

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Barbusse Street — former Synagogengasse — in the “lower” town are shown as industrial areas.

In spite of a successive growth in the service sector with new enterprises such as cafés and restaurants, venues and free cultural activities many left the town to fi nd work elsewhere. Th e population fell from 264,000 in 1996 to 240,000 in 2001.

Th en almost 80% were Ukrainians, over 11% Russians, just over 6% Romanians/

Moldovans, and only 0.6% Poles and 0.6% Jews. Several Soviet street names were replaced, but sometimes the old Austrian names were retained and translated into Ukrainian. Th e former Lenin Street is simply called Holovna (Main Street).

Th e former Jewish national house today provides space for the Jewish Museum and a Klezmer orchestra. Since the late 1980s most churches have reopened. A literature historian Petro Rychlo thus summarizes the cultural situation in the late Soviet years and today:

Only aft er the big change in 1991 were national identity and multi-culture of Ukrainian Černivci born in mind anew. Slowly, yet hesitantly, the historical memory awakes of the time when the city was part of the Central European cultural space. On the peeling walls behind the Soviet plaster, German or Romanian wall texts appear sometimes — advertisements of the companies that do not exist any more, names of the people who are long gone or scattered all over the world.

Th e city can be read as an ancient palimpsest, whose secret signs testify to a spirit- ual world that has to be rediscovered (translation from German mine)¹⁵.

Th ere is a growing awareness of the uniqueness of Černivci. Historians, literary scholars, architecture researchers and others have devoted much time in international co-operations, especially with Vienna, to the diverse cultural heritage of the city, mostly from the Austrian period. Th e old, multi-ethnic society in the city cannot be recovered, but its built heritage can clearly be identifi ed and maintained. Inventories and investigations of old buildings continue, and many books on the architectural heritage are being published. Th ere is now also a growing interest also in the heritage from the Romanian time.

Despite limited fi nancial resources and catastrophic landslides in 1995 and 2010 north of Henri Barbusse Street, the historic environments, streets and squares, have been considerably upgraded. Run-down buildings have been restored. Prominent residents of the city — especially Ukrainian and Jewish — are honoured with a large number of plaques and statues. In international comparison the cultural heritage is very well brought to life in the urban environment.

An interesting discussion occurred at a seminar in 2004 in connection with the application of the city to be included in UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Th e municipality wanted the whole Habsburg city centre area to be included in the world heritage, but a Russian professor, focusing on strictly architectural values, considered only the former Metropolitan Palace to be unique enough to be placed

15 P. Rychlo, Czernowitz geistige Lebensform, an aft erword in (Rychlo 2004).

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on the UNESCO list. In 2010 this building complex was declared a world cultural heritage, while the rest of the Austrian city centre was defi ned as a “buff er zone”

which essentially should be preserved. Although most urgent to preserve, the old

“lower” Moldovan town was not included in the “buff er zone”. Th e “lower town”

is also the initial centre of Jewish culture. Th e gently curving Henri Barbusse Street, former Synagogengasse, is lined with one- and two-storey houses from the 19th century, including a large synagogue from 1850, a former Jewish hospital, a small synagogue and other former Jewish schools and institutions. Th e small Chewra Tehilim Synagogue has been restored (as a Lutheran church), as well as Türkenbrunnen. On the wall there are visible inscriptions like Wolf Mandel and Isaac Eisikowicz. Pictor de fi rme. Fondat 1910. At many sites old wall inscriptions have been found when restoring buildings. Th e municipality now has a policy of preserving and renovating such inscriptions.

Concluding remarks on Černivci

In Černivci the present mental identifi cation of the city environment strongly refers to its history. Th e Austrian time is regarded the golden age of the town, represented in its most important and beloved streets, places and buildings. Th is is underlined in books, exhibitions, reprinting of old postcards and refl ected in nostalgic cafés and restaurants. Old wall inscriptions are preserved. Famous personalities connected with the city are refl ected in numerous commemorative plaques and monuments. Th e openness of old Czernowitz — der Geist von Cz- ernowitz — is highlighted. Th is was the case in the discussions on the UNESCO heritage in 2004–2010, however narrow architectural considerations of the invit- ed experts limited the UNESCO heritage to the former Metropolitan Residence

— which was also said to refl ect the multi-culture of the city. Generally, references to Austrian time focus on the society as such, not on single ethnic groups. Since Soviet times there has been a special emphasis on the Ukrainian culture and history, especially in connection with homes of prominent Ukrainian personalities.

Th e Jewish heritage is also mostly connected with prominent personalities, but also with the Jewish Palace of Culture. Th e everyday ethnic (mostly Jewish) heritage in the city centre buildings, sites of old shops, cafés, restaurants and other es- tablishments is not very much known or shown, but old photos and postcards give much information. Address books tell much about the inhabitants before the war.

Th e Holocaust is rather little commemorated in Černivci, mainly by commemorative plaques of the ghetto, of Mayor Traian Popovici and of the singer Joseph Schmidt, also containing a picture of the Temple, destroyed in 1941. Th ere is, however, an ongoing signifi cant international research work both concerning Holocaust and the Jewish heritage in Černivci. Th e Jewish museum edited a map showing Jewish sites of culture in the city.

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Th e other three major ethnicities — Romanians, Germans and Poles, are given a rather subordinate role, compared with Ukrainians and Jews. Th e Romanian interwar period is more or less presented as a parenthesis, in spite of the city’s growth, refl ected by numerous buildings in the early modernism and Romanian Brâncoveanu-style. Slowly, a growing interest in the interwar years seems to be shown by historians and architects. Bukowina-Zentrum, closed around 2010, at the university played an important role in exploring the multi-ethnic heritage of Černivci. To some extent, the “Municipal Anatoly Dobriansky Library” continues the “Czernowitz spirit” in literature and culture.

Urban planning includes, from the late Soviet years, an inventory of buildings in the historic parts of the town. Emphasis is put on the “upper town”, its monumental buildings and the traditionally better upper and middle class city buildings. Emphasis is put on the architectural aspects, not on builders, owners, inhabitants and other users. Th e old “lower town” has only a minor role in the treatment of memory, including preservation policy. Only small parts of the city centre were destroyed during World War II, and Soviet urban planning mostly focused on areas of urban growth. However, there were plans for street widening in the city centre, leading to demolitions, but they were never implemented.

L´viv — Lwów — Lemberg

L´viv and Galicia — historic background and ethnic disputes

The period up to 1918

In Lviv/Lwów/Lemberg Polish and Ukrainian cultures have coexisted since the Middle Ages. Founded by a Ukrainian prince in the 13th century, the city was Polish in 1340–1772 and again in 1918–1939. In 1772–1918 it was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, within the Habsburg Empire, and a main centre of both Polish and Ukrainian culture. It was also the “Vatican” of the Greek Catholic community and an important Jewish centre. Th ere were also Germans, Armenians, Czechs and others. Th e Jewish population was gradually integrated in the modern urban culture, initially adapting German and later Pol- ish language, although many spoke Yiddish. Polish, also spoken by many Ukrain- ians, in 1867 replaced German as an offi cial language. Many marriages were eth- nically mixed, mostly between Poles and Ukrainians¹⁶.

16 Among personalities of culture with ties to the city one could mention Leopold von Sacher- -Masoch, Joseph Roth, Scholem-Alejchem, Martin Buber, Stanisław Lem, Józef Wittlin, Wilhelm Feldman, Ostap Ortwin, Olena Kulčycka, Jan Lam and the Jewish religion philosopher Nachman Kohen Krochmal. Several cafés functioned as popular meeting places for writers, artists, philosophers, academicians etc. Franz Xaver Mozart, the son of Wolfgang Amadeus, was a music con- ductor in the city for 30 years.

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World War I implied growing ethnic confl icts and mistrust. Th e war mobiliza- tion indirectly led to the militarization of the Polish and Ukrainian nationalists and violent confrontations in November 1918. Th e Jewish population was neutral in this confl ict, but organized the Security Committee and the Militia to protect their lives and properties. Th e Poles interpreted this as an indirect support for Ukrainians and staged a pogrom against the Jews, on November 22–23, 1918¹⁷.

Lwów/L´viv in inter-war Poland

Lwów was a rather vital city within a newly established Polish republic, with a population growth in 1921–1931 from 219,000 to 310,000. Th e Ukrainian (Greek Catholic) share of the population was 12.4% in 1921, and the Jewish 35%. In 1931, these fi gures were 16% and 32.1% respectively, Ukrainian nationalism gradually radicalised with elements of violence¹⁸. Also anti-Semitism increased.

Better-off districts were located to the southwest, south and east, and worker and low middle class districts mainly to the west, northwest and north. Many Jews inhabited the northwest district. An address book from 1929 shows that in streets such as Szpitalna, Słoneczna, Kazimierzowska and Zamarstynowska there was a large number of small Jewish enterprises — shops, tailors, carpenters, masons, restaurants and pubs. Better-off citizens, mostly Poles and emancipated Jews, inhabited the streets west and southwest of the old town, e.g. Jagiellońska, Akademicka and Leona Sapiehy. Aft er the exhibition “Living and City” in 1926, modernist architecture had its breakthrough. Th e city has many excellent examples of interwar modernism¹⁹.

Ethnic relations during initial Soviet rule in east Galicia and L´viv 1939–41

Th e Soviet occupation of Lwów/L´viv, beginning on September 17, 1939, legit- imized itself with social and national arguments, aiming to create a “Soviet Ukrainian” nation (but no independent Ukrainian state). Failing to gain local support, it was a revolution from above, placing the immigrated Soviet cadres, although mostly ethnic Ukrainians, in leading positions of the society. Ukrain- ian and Russian migrants from the east came to L´viv, but also Jews, escaping from the Nazi-occupied areas of Poland. In 1940–41 many citizens were deported eastwards by the Soviet authorities²⁰. NKVD committed several massacres of

17 W. Wierzbieniec, Th e Processes of Jewish Emancipation and Assimilation in the Multiethnic city of Lviv during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (in: Czaplicka 2005).

18 In 1929 the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded.

19 Among early modernist architects one could mention Ferdinand Kassler, Zbigniew War- dzala, Julian Awin, Tadeusz Wróbel and Witold Minkiewcz.

20 According to Philipp Th er, altogether 330,000 persons, among them Poles and Jews escaped from the Nazi-occupied areas of Poland eastwards from the former Polish east Galicia. Cf. Ph.

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Ukrainian and Polish nationalists. Th e last one in L´viv, claiming 4,000–8,000 victims, took place shortly before the German invasion in 1941. Th e situation of Jews was complicated. Some of them were attracted by the Soviet promise of abandoning anti-Semitism and guaranteeing equal rights for Jews. Some of them collaborated with the Soviet power, whilst others, e.g. businessmen and intel- lectuals, were persecuted and deported. Nevertheless, many Polish and Ukrain- ian nationalists considered the whole Jewish population as co-re sponsible for the Soviet terror.

The Holocaust and the Ukrainian national movement in L´viv during the German occupation 1941–44

Similar to the Soviet power, the Nazis had a mixed approach towards Ukrain- ian nationalists, both promising and rejecting Ukrainian independence. Th ey allowed Ukrainian auxiliary police and recruited, like the Soviets, Ukrainians to carry out the everyday work of the new regime²¹. Armed confl icts between Poles and Ukrainians in 1942–43 (80,000–100,000 victims) were partly instigated by the Nazis.

Th e Holocaust in L´viv was extremely harsh. Directly aft er the Germans’ ar- rival on 30 June 1941, a pogrom resulting in 8,000–9,000 Jewish victims took place, supported by Ukrainian nationalists²². Labour camps were established in the autumn in (Polish street names) Janowska and Czwartaków streets (the latter site is today a sports hall). From December 15, all Jews had to live in a delimited district in north-west Lwów²³. Its southern part included the western part of the medieval town with the old main synagogue, the reformed synagogue and the Hassidic synagogue from the 1840s as well as the Jewish hospital and the old Jew- ish cemetery. Jews were forced to destroy tombstones at the Jewish cemetery and crush them into street paving²⁴. In 1942, the Nazis destroyed the most important Jewish monument — the Golden Rose synagogue from 1594.

Th er, War versus Peace (in: Czaplicka 2005), referring to S. Ciesieliski et al., Masowe deportacje, Wrocław 1997, p. 82.

21 In July 1941 the Germans, assisted by Ukrainian nationalists, executed 45 Polish university professors.

22 Th e main source of a detailed description of the Holocaust in L´viv is (Friedman 1945).

Friedman also writes that Jews were exposed to robberies and forced fi nancial contributions to the Germans — amounting to 20 million roubles by August. In the summer of 1941 Jewish inhabitants in the wealthy district around (inter-war Polish street names) 29 Listopada, Potockiego, Wulecka. Kadecka, and św. Zofi i streets had to leave their homes and possessions to the Germans.

23 See: www.deathcamp.org.

24 Th e southern area was delimited by (Polish street names) Zamarstynowska street, Krakow- ski square, Kazimierza Wielkiego, Szpitalna and Rappoporta, and Kleparowska streets and the railway, and the northern area (ghetto) by the railway, Tetmajera and Pólnocna streets, Kloperów

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From March 16, 1942 Jews were regularly either deported to the Bełżec death camp or taken to the Janowska camp, mostly to be shot at the nearby “Sands”

(Piaski). Within the following 10 months, 80,000–85,000 Jews were murdered.

From September 7, 1942, all the remaining Jews had to live in a reduced ghetto north of the railway, under extremely diffi cult conditions, and bad sanitation, causing a typhus epidemic²⁵. In the end of 1942, the ghetto was reduced to a small area west of Zamarstynowska street. Th e area contained two densely built up blocks²⁶, some mixed buildings, factories and a modernist culture building from 1936–38. Until autumn 1943 the Jews were systematically killed²⁷. It is estimated that altogether 136,000 Jews from Lwów fell victim to the Holocaust. It is also estimated that about 200,000 persons, were taken from diff erent places to the Janowska camp and killed there²⁸. Very few Lwów Jews survived, mainly with the help of other local inhabitants, with false documents and hideouts. Some were hidden by the Greek Catholic metro politan Andrej Šeptyc´kyj in churches and monasteries²⁹. Th e northern and north western sector of the inner city, traditionally populated by many Jews and also including the ghetto area, was partly destroyed during the war. Most of historic L´viv, however, was rather undamaged.

Soviet re-annexation of east Galicia and expulsions of Poles after 1944

Already at the Tehran conference in 1943, the Western Allies agreed to let the Soviet Union keep most of the former Polish areas annexed in 1939 and to com- pensate Poland by the annexation of Germany’s eastern territories. Aft er Lwów/

L´viv had been re-conquered by the Soviets in the end of July 1944, expulsions of Poles began. In July 1946, 787,000 persons were expelled from west Galicia, almost 125,000 of them from L´viv. From the 1939 population in Lwów only around

square, the Peltev River, and Korytna, Ordona and Zamarstynowska streets. Th is, and the later li- mitations of the ghetto are shown on a map at: www.deathcamp.org.

25 Important testimonies of the Holocaust and ghetto in L´viv are given by N. Ruda in her book Zum ewigen Andenken. Erinnerungen eines Mädchens aus dem Ghetto Lwow (2000) and by L. Chu- wis Th au in her book Hidden (2012).

26 In one of these blocks, at no. 6 Jakob Herman (present Lemkivs´ka) street, the artist and stage designer Zygmunt Balk and his son, the poet Henryk Balk lived. Th ey died in 1941 and 1942 respectively (Henryk by suicide). No. 4 was a shelter for poor Jewish merchants and no. 8 has a do- rmitory of the T. Ashkenazi vocational school.

27 Th e last execution, at Janowska camp on November 18, 1943, was called the Aktion Ernte- fest (cf. Friedman 1945).

28 Information about the Holocaust in L´viv is mainly based on the website www.deathcamps.

org, using the principal sources Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Other sources are Th . Sandkü hler,

“Endlösung” in Galizien. Der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiative von Berthold Beitz 1941–1944, [place of publication?] 1996 and S. Wiesenthal, Justice not Vengeance, London 1989.

29 Ph. Th er, War versus Peace (in: Czaplicka 2005).

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30,000 persons — 8.7% — remained by 1947³⁰. Russian and Ukrainian became offi cial languages. Soviet settlers gradually replaced the vanished population, increasing the number of inhabitants to 410,000 in 1959³¹. In 1971 there were 566,000 inhabitants: 68.2% of Ukrainians, 22.3% of Russians and others — 9.5%

in total. Th e Central European urban culture centre Lwów had vanished³². Several of the expelled Poles settled in Wrocław, former Breslau, where the earlier German population was expelled³³. Parts of the former Polish urban and academic life of Lwów could continue in Wrocław. Th e university library Os- solineum opened a new branch in this city. To some extent the notion of Wrocław as a “second Lwów” is a myth, but there are still today special relations between the two cities.

Urban planning and the treatment of memory in L´viv

Soviet urban planning beginnings in 1939–41

Immediately aft er the Soviet takeover in 1939, changes in the political system and societal order were refl ected in urban planning³⁴. Cadres from the inter-war Soviet Union arrived in order to transform a pre-war Central European multi- ethnic city into a Soviet industrial city³⁵. Th ey had little understanding of its historical legacy and structures, and “…some even viewed the unfamiliar environment with actual hostility” (Tscherkes 2005, p. 206). In spite of this attitude, the chief planner Karsianov allowed some authors³⁶ of the pre-war general plan of 1938 to take part in the work on a new General Plan, but following Soviet ideology. He stated that “the western provinces of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist

30 Within a few months, the Soviet authorities had “repatriated” 117,000 Poles from western Ukraine to Poland, partly still under German occupation. Cfr. M. Åberg, Paradox of Change: So- viet Modernization and Ethno-Linguistic Diff erentiation in Lviv, 1945–1989 (in: Czaplicka 2005).

31 Ph. Th er, War versus Peace (in: Czaplicka 2005).

32 Bohdan Tscherkes notes: “Th e loss of the city’s two largest ethnic groups — the Poles and the Jews — resulted in the concomitant, almost complete loss of L´viv’s multi-ethnical character and European orientation. With most of its residents gone, the face of the burgeoning capital that had once been the economic and cultural anchor of Austrian Galicia began to change. Joseph Stalin’s Iron Curtain, drawn for nearly fi ft y years, intensifi ed the city’s isolation and the deterioration of its historical character” (Tscherkes 2005, p. 206).

33 Nava Ruda and her parents came to a fl at in Wrocław from which the former German inhabitants had been thrown out shortly before without a possibility to take any possessions with them (Ruda 2000).

34 Th e following passage is mainly based on B. Tscherkes, Stalinist Visions for the Urban Trans- formation of Lviv, 1939–1955, in Czaplicka 2005.

35 Urban planning was carried out by the L´viv branch of Dipromist, the Ukrainian State In- stitute of Urban Planning.

36 P. Penkovskyj, W. Leiber and Solomon Keil.

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Republic are home to a great number of architects … (who) have a capable culture of building”, but he added that “this culture has been acquired during the era of capitalism. In an architectural and artistic sense, it is barren, and lacking ideas”.

Karsianov wrote that these shortcomings “can be fruitfully resolved when architects learn to implement correctly the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin

— the key to understanding all knowledge”³⁷. Bohdan Tscherkes concludes:

Karsianov’s less than approving comments, as well as those of his collaborators, illustrate the practically unconditional denunciation of the material and architectural heritage of L´viv during the immediate pre-war period and serve as reminders of the propagandistic rhetoric employed by the majority of architects of Karsianov’s generation, who were educated in Stalin- ist technical universities. (Tscherkes 2005, p. 208)

Th e architectural landscape was to be changed by new monumental buildings in crucial locations, as viewpoints from diff erent districts of the city and from old and new street axes. Th e main axis was planned to the east, towards the Castle Hill and a new central square “on the ruins of the medieval ghetto”(Karsianov 1940, in: Tscherkes 2005). Th e plan, also including a Lenin and a Unifi cation (with Ukraine) monument, threatened important historical districts, including the network of open spaces. Th e plans had not yet been implemented by the time of the German invasion in June 1941.

Urban planning of historical areas in the early post-war and later Soviet years Already in 1946 the second Soviet general plan was conceived, aiming to transform L´viv into a large industrial centre. Largely unrealized, it had two specifi c features: on the one hand, street axes and monuments glorifying the Soviet ideology, making L´viv “Soviet, not only in essence but also in form”, on the other hand, a certain acknowledgement and tolerance concerning the historical, cultural heritage of L´viv³⁸. Anatolij Švec´ko-Vinec´kyj, one of the authors of the plan, was a Soviet pioneer in the fi eld of preservation of cultural heritage, who draft ed a list of important architectural monuments of L´viv thereby saving them (Tscherkes 2005, pp. 217–218).

37 In his article Th e Socialist Reconstruction of L´viv in 1940, Karsianov sharply criticizes the qualifi cations and methods of his Polish predecessors and colleagues, including the “latest modernist layering”. Th e three fi rst citations are from O. Karsianiov, ‘Slavnyi rokovyny’, Architektura Radians’koï Ukrainy 9, 1940, p. 7, and the one in this footnote is from O. Karsianov, ‘Socialystyčna rekonstrukcja m. L´vova’, Architektura Radians’koï Ukrainy 9, 1940, pp. 4–12 (in: Tscherkes 2005, p. 206). Karsianov also criticizes the traditional immense commercial preoccupation of the popu- lation and refers to the “parasitic character” of Lviv. In Socialystyčna rekonstrukcja m. L´vova he also describes L´viv as the “centre of the papal Catholic-Uniate reaction”, where “the proud veil of European culture masks the off ensive face of a capitalist barbarian”.

38 Vitaliy Shulyar, Information to Th is Research Project, 2011.

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Th e plan had a 3 km long north-south axis following the present Prospect Čornovola and Prospect Svobody to Prospect Ševčenka, and a 1.2 km west-east axis, from the main railway station to the High Castle area, along the present Horodock´a and Užhorod streets. At the intersection, north of the Opera building, a new large central parade square of 250 x 160 m was planned, requiring the demolition of parts of the old town, which earlier had a marked Jewish character³⁹. New monumental neoclassical buildings with apartments, hotels and offi ces, were planned around the monumental square. Th e largest building, with a tall clock tower, was intended for the local Soviet and party organisations. In front of it an honorary tribune for party and military leaders during parades and manifestations as well as a huge Stalin statue were planned.

Th e Castle Mountain was to be crowned by a 50 m high Lenin monument, visible from all over the city and symbolically erected on the former Union Hill, established in 1869 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Lublin Union of Poland and Lithuania. Th ese monuments aimed to show that a new Soviet society and culture had replaced the old, Central European Polish, Austrian and Jewish culture, but they were never materialized⁴⁰. A modest Lenin monument was erected in 1952 in front of the Opera building, not confl icting with the surrounding buildings.

Th e General Plan for L´viv of 1956, not implemented either, counted on a population growth from 485,000 in 1956 to 520,000 in 1980. Th e city centre was intended to develop towards the north, connected with the new Prospect Čornovola and a new park between Zamarstynivska and Warszawska streets. A new trans- formed square with a monument was planned in this area(Shulyar 2011). Th ese plans were not implemented either. Th e revised General Plan of 1966, expecting 700,000 inhabitants in 1990, included new residential areas in the south, southwest and north, but also new major, never implemented roads, aff ecting parts of central L´viv:

— Th e main west-east axis was extended eastwards through the Old Town between the Church of Our Lady in the Snow and the Benedictine monastery, destroying the urban space of Rybna and Piša streets.

— Prospect Čornovola was to be developed as a mainly pedestrian city centre, requiring the demolition of all buildings between Bohdan Chmel´nyckyj street — Zamarstynivs´ka street and present Pantelymona Kuliša street, also the preserved Hassidic synagogue from the 1840s in St. Th eodor square. Th e L´viv Hotel was erected according to this plan.

39 Th e Old Synagogue and the Reform Synagogue were destroyed during the war.

40 New buildings were also planned at the main railway station, giving visitors a “Soviet” wel- come to the city (Shulyar 2011).

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— New streets and street widenings would require extensive demolitions along many streets, among them Pid Dubom, Tatars´ka, Bazarna, Zamarstynivs´ka and Holovna streets.

Compared with the 1946 plan, urban design had changed from neoclassicism to modernism with larger and free-standing constructions and open areas, more demolitions and greater contrast with the old, traditional urban blocks. However, the historic area around the Rynok Square was to be preserved — as a mostly pedestrian area — as well as the medieval Old Town east of Bohdan Chmel´nyc´kyj street⁴¹.

A revision of the plan for central L´viv of 1970, not implemented either, intro- duced four motor tunnels and a larger system of pedestrian streets and areas. Th e pedestrian Prospect Čornovola was widened to an open, 650 m long and 130 m wide urban space, partly furnished with free-standing tower buildings and edged by huge constructions. Th e plan for a street between the Church of Our Lady in the Snow and the Benedictine monastery was abandoned. Th e “New Town” was not aff ected by the plan, but in the building inventory of the Old Town, north of the Opera, rather few buildings except the old churches were described as valuable, although they formed a partly well preserved environment with the 19th- century buildings along medieval streets. Th e Hassidic synagogue was marked as valuable, but nevertheless demolished according to the plan. North of the railway, the Prospect Čornovola axis continued with a width of 100–130 m, but not aff ecting two dense urban blocks in the WWII ghetto.

Contemporary urban planning and treatment of memory in urban environment Aft er gaining independence in 1991, Ukrainian culture and language became more dominant in L´viv than ever before, gradually replacing Russian. Cultural and scientifi c contacts with Poland were increasing, not least within the fi eld of architectural heritage and preservation. A new General Plan of 1993 included new ring roads, partly in tunnels, through the outer suburban zone, but leaving the central areas intact. So did the following plan, of 2008. Th ere is a general understanding that the historic centre of L´viv, since 1998 included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, must be preserved and relieved from car traffi c. Also the area outside the World Heritage Site has many preserved old buildings of signifi cant cultural, historical and architectural value. Th ere are inventories of old buildings in the whole of historic centre. Th ese buildings mostly represent the former Polish and Jewish population, constituting the majority. A conservation policy, address- ing architecture as such can therefore also indirectly protect the built traces of past populations.

41 Th is and the following material is mainly based on (Shulyar 2011).

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Th e treatment of memory in urban environment has improved lately. Com- memorative plaques have been placed on several sites but not as many as in Černivci. New statues have been erected; the most monumental is that of the OUN⁴² leader Stepan Bandera from 2007 — completed with a colonnade in 2011.

Th e ghetto monument, commemorating the Holocaust, was revealed in 1992⁴³. In 2011 an architecture competition was arranged concerning memorial sites at the Golden Rose synagogue, the former Jewish cemetery and the Janowska camp.

A museum was opened in the Lonc´koho prison, commemorating the Soviet sup- pression — but not the German misdeeds on the same site. Th e museum called

“Territory of Terror” will be opened within the reduced ghetto area of 1943, also the site for “Transit Prison no. 25” in Stalinist time. Some 500,000 persons from Galicia and Bukovina passed through this prison before their deportation eastwards in the years 1944–55. Th ere are also several current building projects in north and west L´viv, mostly aff ecting old industrial areas.

Concluding remarks on L´viv

Although historic L´viv is mainly a Polish city, Polish culture and history are not very much highlighted in books and inventories. Th e Ukrainian heritage is more evidently presented e.g. on such sites as the St. George Cathedral, the “Dn- ister” building and the medieval St. Nicholas and John the Baptist churches. Th e renaissance and baroque city is, between the lines, more connected with L´viv as such as a historic site and single architects and builders are mentioned, but the connection with the Polish society is left in the background.

Th e Austrian period as such is not highlighted, but its major architectural monuments are well accentuated and connected with the general city culture.

Early modernist buildings from the interwar years are also presented as an expression of their time, rather than as the Polish heritage. Th is practice could indi- cate a desire for reconciliation with respect to the traditional Polish-Ukrainian contraposition, not bringing into question L´viv as belonging to Ukraine.

Th e Jewish heritage in L’viv has only been put to the fore in recent years, mostly connected with memories of the Holocaust. Commemorative plaques mark the sites of the destroyed Old Synagogue and Golden Rose Synagogue. At Janowska camp there is a small memorial site. Th e largest monument is dedicated to the Nazi ghetto. Larger monuments are planned at Golden Rose, Janowska and the old Jewish cemetery. Th e Jewish museum edited a map with sites of Jewish history and culture.

42 OUN was the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, founded in 1929.

43 Th e monument was created by the Israeli sculptor Luisa Sterenstein, once resident in L´viv, together with her son Yoel Schmukler.

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Already in 1939–41, Soviet planning aimed at demolitions in the rather poor northwest parts of the Old Town to give space for the large-scale Stalinist urban spaces. Th e same areas under Nazi occupation were used for the shrinking Jew- ish ghetto. Th is city district was rather heavily damaged during World War II, although many buildings and urban spaces remained untouched. Th e post-war Soviet plans aimed at a large-scale renewal of the area, initially in Stalinist classicism, later in modernist ways. Only small parts of the plans have been implemented and many old buildings remain, but there are still empty areas aft er demolitions.

Th e preservation policy and inventories of old buildings began already in the Soviet years, but following strict architectural criteria, focusing on the monuments and the best preserved city buildings. Th e more simple, but traditional old buildings were ranked lower, e.g. in the northeast part of central L´viv, and no attention was paid to earlier owners or users of the buildings. Available address books from before World War II give some information about this.

In spite of Soviet urban planning practice, very few demolitions have occurred in central L´viv aft er 1944. In post-Soviet time there are many development projects in the area, but causing few demolitions of old living houses. In 1998, the oldest parts of L´viv were included in the UNESCO World Heritage list, but a large area outside of it was declared to belong to the “historic city”, where new buildings must be adapted to the old fabric and scale. Th is also includes the northwest part of the central town, including the former ghetto area. However, preservation rules are in many cases rather weak. Th e L´viv center, founded in 2004, has led and co-ordinated several research projects concerning multi-ethnic L´viv, including Jewish and Polish L´viv.

Wrocław — Breslau

Breslau — Wrocław — historic background

Breslau before the German unifi cation in 1871

Wrocław/Breslau/Vratislav, the historical centre of Silesia, fi rst mentioned around 1000, in the Middle Ages was alternately Bohemian and Polish, with a mixed population of Poles, Czechs, Germans, Jews, and also Walloons. Aft er a considerable German colonization in the 13th century, German became a dom- inating language. Breslau was a rich commercial centre and Hanseatic city in the 16th century, with magnifi cent buildings and churches and a fl ourishing cultural life. In 1638 a small Catholic academy was founded, later a Jesuit school, followed in 1702 by the Leopoldina University. Its main baroque building from 1728–36 contains the magnifi cent Aula Leopoldina and the famous astronomic tower.

From the 1700s the city was alternately under Austrian and Prussian rule.

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Th e oldest parts of the city are the Cathedral Island with the St. John the Bap- tist Cathedral, the Church of the Holy Cross and St. Martin’s Church from the 13th century, and the Sand Island with Sandkirche (1334–1440) and the former university library. South of the river lies the Old Town, mostly laid out in 1241 in a regular pattern around the big market square Ringplatz, with the City Hall, the large St. Elisabeth’s Church and the nearby St. Mary Magdalene’s Church from the 14th century. Th e old town image is also characterised by several other old churches and monasteries. Although the city was dominated by the German culture and language since late medieval time, there was a multicultural and open atmosphere in Breslau, bearing resemblance to cities like Vienna and Prague.

From 1811 the University of Breslau had theology departments for both Roman Catholics and Protestants and in 1854 the Jewish Th eology Seminary was established.

Breslau from 1871 up to 1933 — before Nazi rule

From 1871 Breslau rapidly developed as an industrial and commercial centre within the united German Empire. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the Opera house, the Main Railway Station, bank buildings, municipal buildings and the large Market Hall were built. In 1900 there were 422,000 inhabitants, of whom 58% were Protestant, 37% Roman Catholics and 5% Jewish (one of the largest Jew- ish population shares in Germany). Some 5% were Poles or Czechs. Cultural and academic life fl ourished. As many as 11 Nobel Prize winners have connections with the city⁴⁴. Th e Jewish population of Breslau, around 30,000 in 1930, was well integrated into German society and played, in proportion to its size, a very prominent role in science, culture and business⁴⁵.

Th e magnifi cent New Synagogue from 1865–72 symbolized Jewish signifi cance in the town. Another Jewish centre was in Wallstraße, with the Storch Synagogue (1827–29), association premises, schools, canteens, etc. Th ree Jewish commercial houses were precursors of architecture: the Jugendstil Gebrüder Barasch department store in Ringplatz, the early modernist Petersdorff -Bielschowsky-Gottstein

44 Th eodor Mommsen (1902) and Gerhart Hauptmann (1912) in literature, Philipp Lenard (1905), Erwin Schrödinger (1933), Otto Stern (1943) and Max Born (1954) in physics, Eduard Buchner (1907), Fritz Haber (1918) and Friedrich Bergius (1931) in chemistry, Paul Ehrlich (1908) in medicine and Reinhard Selten (1994) in economy. Erwin Schrödinger left Germany in 1933 in the protest against anti-Semitism and Nazism. Th e famous psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer was active in Breslau. In 1879, Johannes Brahms became Honorary Doctor of Music in Breslau.

45 An important source for this passage is (Davies & Moorhouse 2003). Jewish culture in Bre- slau is described in detail in M. Łagiewski, Wrocławscy Żydzi 1850–1944, Wrocław 2010. Among persons with Jewish background one could mention the Noble Prize winners Lenard, Stern, Born, Haber, Ehrlich and Selten, the social democratic leader Ferdinand Lassalle, the philosophers Edith Stein and Ernst Cassirer, the sociologist Norbert Elias, the reporter Henry Kamm and the historian Walter Laqueur.

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fashion house (1927–28, Erich Mendelsohn) and the Wertheim department store (1929–30, Hermann Dernburg).

Modern urban planning and architecture developed rapidly in Breslau. In 1913, the Jahrhunderthalle (Centennial Hall) was erected, in 2006 included in UNESCO’s World Heritage list. Th e housing districts of Pöpelwitz (Popowice, 1919–28 by Th eodor Eff enberg, Moritz Hadda⁴⁶ et al.) and Zimpel (Sępolno, 1919–35, by Hermann Wahlich and Paul Heim) were at the top of contemporary European settlements. Other interesting examples of early modernism are Städtische Sparkasse in Ring (1930–31, Heinrich Rump) and Mohrenhaus in Blü- cherplatz (1928, Adolf Rading)⁴⁷.

Breslau during inter-war Nazi rule

In the inter-war period, the population increased to 600,000. Th e Polish share decreased from 5 to 1%, because many Poles left for re-constituted Poland⁴⁸. Although the closeness to Poland was noticed in trade and cultural exchange, Breslau lagged somewhat behind the rapid development in the western regions of Germany. Th is created a climate of protests against the contemporary society and caused nationalism to rise, nourished by the dispute aft er World War I about the German-Polish border in Upper Silesia. German university students were en- couraged to spend one semester in Breslau in order to strengthen it as a “bulwark of the German East”. Th is enforced the Nazi movement. In the elections of July (resp. November) 1932 the Nazis received 43.5 (40.5)% of the Breslau votes, compared with 37.2 (33.1) % at the national level. In the 1933 elections, Breslau was one of the few German constituencies with a Nazi majority — 50.2%(cf. Davies

& Moorhouse 2003; Th um 2011).

Th e German annexation of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938 enforced the Nazi ideology as well as economic development in nearby Breslau. Although thousands of Jews emigrated aft er 1933, 10,000 remained on the Kristallnacht in 1938. Th e large synagogue was destroyed, and around 2500 Jews were sent to concentration camps. Jewish institutions were closed and companies and stores were “Aryanised”. Also the declining Polish minority was declared to be inferior people. Th e Centennial Hall was used for several manifestations, such as Hitler’s visit in March 1933 and the 125th anniversary of the Iron Cross Foundation in 1938. However, there was also resistance to the Nazis. Th e theologian Dietrich Bonhoeff er from Breslau was a leading person in the Bekennende Kirche, “Con-

46 Moritz Hadda, from a Jewish family, was murdered in Riga in 1941.

47 Th e Politechnika Wrocławska team of the current research project, headed by prof. Elż- bieta Przesmycka, has provided an extensive material on Wrocław architecture, referred to here.

48 G. Th um, Uprooted. How Breslau Became Wrocław during the Century of Expulsions, Princeton NJ 2011.

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fessing Church”, opposing totalitarianism and persecution of Jews. He was executed as late as in April 1945, shortly before German capitulation.

Breslau during World War II and the Holocaust

Th e remaining Jews were gradually excluded from society. From July 1941 to June 1943 they were deported to Kaunas, Majdanek, Sobibór, Th eresienstadt and Auschwitz. Th e White Stork Synagogue in Wallstrasse and the police station in the Odertor (today Nadodrze) railway station were assembling places for deportation. Many of the Breslauers were fooled in a kind of false security sense, because there were no war activities or bombings, but rather certain vitality. Th e city was a centre of war production and logistics for supplying the eastern front. Breslau had almost 1 million inhabitants in 1944. Children were evacuated to the city and the Sudeten Mountains to escape bombings in the west.

During the Soviet advance westwards in autumn 1944, Hitler declared Breslau to be a fortress (Festung), not allowed to surrender under any circumstances. Th e large-scale Soviet off ensive began on January 12, 1945, in harsh winter weather.

Th e following week, Gauleiter Karl Hanke issued an order to evacuate the civil population, but it was too late to provide suffi cient train capacity. Following pan- ic, chaos and death accidents, women and children were ordered to leave on foot.

Hundreds of thousands Breslauers joined refugee treks on the snow-fi lled roads towards the Sudeten Mountains. Tens of thousands froze or died of exhaustion⁴⁹. Gauleiter Hanke established a reign of terror. Deputy Mayor Wolfgang Spielhagen was shot in front of the Town Hall on January 28, accused of having left the city without permission. His body was thrown into the Oder River, and a warning was publicized: “Whoever fears an honourable death will suff er a shameful one!”

(cf. Th um 2011).

When Soviet troops surrounded the city, on February 15, there were still 150,000–250,000 civilians and tens of thousands of forced labourers, prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates. Th e Soviet Army advanced into the affl uent district around Hindenburgplatz followed by street-to-street and house-to-house battles, turning the whole neighbourhoods into ashes and rubble. Buildings along Websky, Tauentzien and Freiburger Strasse and other streets, such as the Museum of Applied Arts were burnt down in order to create German defence lines. Along Kaiserstraße a segment of buildings was demolished to make room for an aircraft runway. Th e Gothic Cathedral and other churches and historic buildings were destroyed in battles. Th e commander, general Hermann Niehoff , did not surrender until May 6, the stubbornness leading to additional tens of thousands of dead. In total the battles and bombings claimed around 60,000 lives.

49 Th is was also the time of death marches from concentration camps before the Red Army arrived.