The shortest answer to the question of whether any public bunkers are still available is brief: there are none. The shelter next to the district court and theatre has been bricked up, and one of the entrances is overgrown with vegetation. The other shelter, located in the railway embankment, is also not suitable for people to stay in. It is possible to enter it, as the hatch is damaged, but there is nothing special inside.
– There are no bunkers left in the city – says the president’s spokesperson Agnieszka Gergont. At the same time, to emphasise the size of the places that once served as bunkers, she jokingly adds that she invites people to her basement, which is larger than the shelter beneath the railway embankment.
– Near Pückler Palace (the former special school, soon to become the new home of the Museum of Ceramics), opposite the building where the architect Engelhardt Gansel lived, there is an air-raid slit trench. As for remains in other places, there are several. For example, there are remnants of such slit trenches near the new COVID hospital and at the provincial hospital on Tysiąclecia Street. These trenches are underground, winding, zigzagging corridors covered with concrete slabs. During air raids, civilians hid in such trenches. There were also such structures near the church on Zamkowy Square, as well as not far from Garncarska Street. All of this has now been removed and houses have been built there. There were once also such trenches near the City Center shopping gallery, near the former number-eight school. Local self-defence units used them in the past. Such structures stood on Mickiewicza Street, behind the former carpenter’s workshop. There were also specially prepared basements on Lubańska Street, beneath the buildings on the left-hand side when travelling towards Bożejowice. They had special cabins, gas-tight doors, reinforced ceilings and walls, and special blinds on the windows. However, none of these structures are suitable for modern times – says Zdzisław Abramowicz, who knows Bolesławiec very well.