Kielce is a city of about 200,000 inhabitants in eastern Poland, about 130 km
north-east of Kraków. I spent a couple of days there this week because I was
participating in a conference on IP rights, organised by the former head of the
Polish Patent Office, now a professor at the Technical University of Kielce. I
arrived there Sunday mid-day and departed Tuesday afternoon. Most of the
pictures were taken during a walkabout in the town on Sunday afternoon.
Kielce is a rather nondescript place. It is much smaller than the other Polish
cities I usually visit—Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław—and this was my first ever visit
there. The town is known, or notorious, for a terrible event in 1946, a pogrom
of about 40 Jews who survived the Holocaust and came back to reclaim their
homes in Kielce, only to be met with deadly hostility. This episode is a black
spot on the history of Kielce and indeed of Poland. But still, the man who
picked me up at Kraków airport, drove me the 130 km to the hotel in Kielce, and
spent his entire Sunday afternoon showing me around was not even born when
these terrible happenings took place, and yet he was clearly ashamed on behalf
of his town. I did not sense the kind of civic pride that one might expect from
someone who was born in and has lived his whole life in the same town.
So here is a gallery showing Kielce as I saw it. Not pretty, but not horrible
either. And the past is being acknowledged. As I sometimes say, this part of
Europe has too much history.
https://www.greatpix.eu/Travel/Kielce/ <https://www.greatpix.eu/Travel/Kielce/>
As always, comments and critique are welcome and appreciated.
Nathan
Nathan Wajsman
photo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
http://www.greatpix.eu
http://www.frozenlight.eu
Слава Україні! Героям слава!
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