Perspectives on Nowa Huta

29 years ago my mother traveled to Poland as a journalist, to cover the country under martial law. She spent the Christmas vigil with a family in the infamous communist housing complex of Nowa Huta. I grew up hearing Nowa Huta essentially described as the epitome of all that was wrong in communist Poland. So, despite having been to Krakow three times, it was not until a few weeks ago that worked up the courage to take the tramwaj out to this section of the city.
What I found there surprised me. I had heard up to that point Nowa Huta was still one of the poorest and ugliest parts of Krakow. However, I found a well kept development, free of any obvious poverty. Compared to other block housing developments I have visited in Romania and Moldova, the buildings in Nowa Huta are in good condition. Graffiti, prolific in many parts of Poland, seemed to be kept to a minimum.
Despite the city’s current condition, reminders of its troubled past are still everywhere. It’s not that the scars of socialist era have yet to heal. The development was originally conceived as a model socialist utopia, but the present day residents of Nowa Huta seem to enjoy finding new and creative ways of giving the finger to the Bolsheviks. You pass from streets such as Solidarity Avenue to Pope John Paul II Street. The statue of Lenin which once dominated Nowa Huta’s Plac Centralny is conspicuously absent, replaced on the far end of the square by a monument to the Solidarity movement. A chapel has been consecrated on the site where the government's refusal to allow the residents to build a church incited riots. The cross originally in the field is now a monument. One of the inscriptions on the cross, a quote by Pope John Paul II reads “ from the cross in Nowa Huta began a new evangelism, the evangelism of a new milennium.” It was amazing to know that I was standing one of the spots where Poles began their fight for freedom.
With these thoughts in my head I decided to stop in at a café on the main square before heading back to Krakow. Soon after I sat down, one of Nowa Huta’s senior citizens, a resident of 50 years, entered and asked if he could sit with me. We began talking about how the city had changed. “Everything works now,” he opined, “but these days we lack community.” He proceeded to tell me of late nights at the cinema, and dancing until dawn in the city’s famous Restaracja Stylowa. "It was truly beautiful,” he added, “ but young people these days are only interested in new things.” His statement made more sense when my teacher later explained that the entertainment of which he spoke of were events organized by the communist party. Restaracja Stylowa is still there, but is now a tourist attraction that caters to communism tour groups. The way the old man in the café spoke of it, it sounded like it had closed long ago. For him , it may well have.