In the archives of the Polish Newsreel, a fragment from 1958 has survived in which Bolesławiec appears. The material is titled “Candidates” and shows the city during a period of intensive reconstruction after the destruction of the Second World War.
The Newsreel’s narrator, Włodzimierz Kmicik, recalls that Bolesławiec was one of the most severely damaged cities in Lower Silesia. The material highlights the role of the Municipal National Council, which, as noted, brought about the almost complete reconstruction of the historic city centre. The rebuilding of the city was one of the key topics of that period and an important part of the residents’ post-war reality.
The film features Jan Czajkowski, chairman of the Municipal National Council, who was running for the new council in 1958. The newsreel also reports on the development of local infrastructure—the opening of more than one hundred service outlets, several dozen shops and a health centre—which was intended to demonstrate the dynamic changes taking place in the city.
One of the more personal fragments of the material is a visit to Michał Bigosiński’s hairdressing salon, located on one of Bolesławiec’s shady little streets. Like the council chairman, the craftsman is also running for the new council, which was meant to emphasise the residents’ involvement in the city’s public life.
The material ends with the statement that on 2 February, the residents of Bolesławiec “will not have to think long about these candidacies”. Today, the fragment of the Polish Newsreel is an interesting source of knowledge about the city’s post-war history and how Bolesławiec was presented in the official media of the time.