Photography: A life in ruins
Just after World War II, Poland's capital lay in ruins. The utter devastation wrought by the Nazis during and after the Warsaw Uprising turned the city to rubble, abandoned by its inhabitants. But in the years following the war, people started to return. An exhibition currently running at the House of Meetings with History (Dom Spotkań z Historiš) in Warsaw documents their story and that of the city they started to rebuild.
The exhibition, entitled "Another Poland. PAP photographs 1945-1947" presents around 100 photographs and a similar number of slides taken by professional photographers from Polish news agencies. This is the first presentation of many of the pictures, which for the past few decades have lain in the Polish Press Agency's (PAP) archive as negatives. However, the exhibition is made that much more special because it documents a very specific, short period of time in Polish history, when the communist party was trying to get along with the Catholic Church.
"Only then did the government officially participate in religious ceremonies, and priests participated in state events. Later, during the period of harsh Stalinism, such a situation would have been unthinkable," says Katarzyna Madoń-Mitzner, the curator of the display.
Some of the photographs show political events, such as large communist meetings, the funeral of communist general Karol wierczyński, the first political trials and settlers on the former German lands. Others show how people tried to cope amidst the ruins. People work, children play. "In these photos one can find the enormous, historical story and the small stories of everyday life," says Madoń-Mitzner.
The exhibition runs until March 31. For more details log on to www.dsh.waw.pl
