Bolesławiec residents passing the recently erected post (obelisk, monument) with plaques made of copper scratch their heads. The post (monument, obelisk) stands in a busy location, in a small square next to a pond (without water) on Bankowa Street. Until recently, it was the monument to the “Gratitude to the Red Army.” The city authorities did not really know what to do with the monument, so they came up with an idea...
The monument was supposed to be turned into a kind of milestone indicating distances to various European cities. Something neither one thing nor the other was created. Some cities (accidentally applied to the copper) have a specified distance; others (Hobro, Siegburg) do not. Since I learned that the inscription “Siegburg” is justified by the cooperation established with that city, a few words on the subject, by the way. What are our connections with this distant city (the distance from Siegburg to Bolesławiec is not given on the post-monument, but I read in Głos Bolesławca that it is 790 km)? Well, it stems from the fact that Siegburg and the area around this district town are home to a sizeable German community from the former BUNZLAU, which returned to the Motherland in 1945 and became, as in the days of the Silesian Piasts, Bolesławiec. Although for a short time in the summer of 1945 it was called Bolesław. The “Bunzlakers”—the German residents of the town—were resettled to the British occupation zone in 1946–1947, in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement. And they happened to find themselves in Siegburg. The post-war generation of “Bunzlakers” grew up there. And they are doing quite well there. They only miss their Bunzlau, just as we miss the cities of the Eastern Borderlands. And there is no remedy for that. They founded there a very active association, what we call a “hometown association.” Such hometown associations were a thorn in the side of the authorities in the bygone era. Today, no one objects to them. We too have our “hometown” organizations of Lviv residents, Vilnius residents, Grodno residents, and so on. The “Bunzlaker” hometown association in Siegburg erected a monument in the city center, naturally made of... ceramic stoneware, depicting a woman shaping a pot on a wheel. Below it is the inscription “Bunzlau 790 km.” A few reflections connected with this. Well, several copies of an interesting book in German are circulating around Bolesławiec. Its title in Polish is “Bolesławiec County on the Bóbr and Kwisa Rivers. A Homeland Book.” Richly illustrated, with a durable linen binding, coated paper, maps, many good photographs and... 528 pages! A third expanded and supplemented edition has already been published, including photographs by the late Alojzy Skorupa, our Bolesławiec activist and documentary photographer, although the author is not credited under the photographs...
The book was published by the “Bunzlakers’” hometown association in Siegburg. The book is interesting, despite many reservations, and I recommend it not only to researchers of our town. You only need to know at least a little of the language of our neighbors from beyond the Lusatian Neisse.
The book probably deserves a more extensive article in Głos Bolesławca on another occasion. This publication contains historical material, although it is sometimes controversial. The final chapter covers the years of the Second World War and the first two years of our town’s history, before the German residents were resettled. But it also discusses our Polish reconstruction of the town from the ruins and its expansion. For the first time, we encounter German accounts of the front line’s approach to the town at the beginning of 1945. They also describe the fighting in Bolesławiec as seen through German eyes, the German units that defended the town, and the beginnings of the “Soviet occupation,” followed by the “Polish occupation.”
It is characteristic here, and fairly widespread in German consciousness, that they look somewhat more favorably on the former USSR and the “Soviet occupiers” than on Poland and the “Polish occupiers.” Well, centuries of friendly cooperation between Germany and Russia, evidenced by the emigration of millions of Germans to Russia, left their mark... The first post-war years of our town are presented here in a scandalous and distorted manner, including false accounts of the methods of expulsion (for example, that anyone who did not want to leave was immediately threatened with a bullet in the head), and wildly untruthful, anti-Polish information about the “German partisans,” or, as we call it, the “Werwolf.” This chapter contains many lies that are offensive to us. Do they have the right to see history this way?... Unfortunately, it was forgotten that immediately after 1945, the wounds inflicted by the German occupier were fresh and painful. Almost all Poles—the pioneers of this land along the Bóbr—suffered greater or lesser wrongs at the hands of Germans. Even from ordinary, simple people. It brings tears to one’s eyes that we lack a publication, a monograph about our town and the Bolesławiec region.
There, they already have a third edition of more than 500 pages; here, we have a few folders and pamphlets...
Returning to the milestone (monument, obelisk): attention must be drawn to the clumsy removal of everything that had been on the monument and that we wanted to cover with bronze plaques... At the bottom of the monument’s main face are traces of some inscription. They are visible. Fragments of reliefs depicting stylized soldiers protrude from beneath the plaques hung higher up. And finally, a question: will the votive candles placed on both sides of the post-monument be lit, and when and on what occasion? They have not been removed, so presumably they will serve some purpose.
Besides, what am I complaining about? After all, these votive candles add splendor to the post (monument). But I cannot forget how, about 30 years ago, a 10-year-old girl was engulfed in flames by one of them...