Bystrzyca Kłodzka

Travelling by car with Moni to take the rest of her furniture and things from to Prague, we stop off at Bystrzyca Kłodzka, where my grandmother lived. I had visited the small town, not far from the Czech border, in 1961 (which I don't remember), 1966, 1976 and 1989.

Below: Moni tending the grave of her great-grandmother, my grandmother, Anna Bortnik, who died in September 1976 aged 83, two months after my third and last visit to see her. Also commemorated on the gravestone is my grandfather, Piotr Bortnik, who died of typhoid fever in Kazakhstan in 1943. Deported to the USSR from Horodziec in Wołyń in 1940, neither grandparents nor their three daughters would ever see their home again. After the war, my widowed grandmother and her eldest daughter were repatriated to Poland's 'recovered territories' of Lower Silesia once the German population had been deported. The two younger daughters made it to the West.

This pleasant corner of modern-day Poland had previously been Polish, Bohemian, Austrian, Prussian and German. Below: the view from my grandmother's grave.

Bystrzyca Kłodzka, formerly Habelschwerdt, a town dating back to the 13th century, was founded by Havel of Lemberk, a Bohemian nobleman, next to the village of Bystřice. Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, the town's allegiance would shift between the Polish and Bohemian crowns before falling under the rule of the Habsburgs, whose lands became known as Austria/the Austrian Empire. Over the course of the three Silesian Wars, Austria lost these territories to Prussia, and so from 1763 Prussia (unified into Germany from 1871) ruled over all of Silesia, upper and lower. Bohemia and Moravia remained parts of the Austrian (Austro-Hungarian from 1867) Empire. The post-1945 border between Poland and Czechoslovakia/Czechia runs along the same line as the old border between Prussia/Germany and Austro-Hungarian Bohemia did in the 18th century after the Silesian Wars.

The Bystrzyca Kłodzka I remember from 1966 and 1976 was drab, grey and poor. Today, it is far richer town, lifted out of poverty by the collapse of communism, the rebirth of entrepreneurship, and tourism. And EU funds have also helped lift living standards here to the point where you'd not see much difference between it and a similarly sized town in provincial England.

Below: the town square, dominated by the old town hall. The sky gives the scene a Mediterranean vibe. There's not enough space between the parked cars to squeeze a bus ticket. Late Saturday afternoon and the local restaurants, cafes and ice-cream parlours are doing good business. We ate lunch in Warsztat Bistro on the square; three out of five tables occupied and a queue for takeaway. My portion was large enough for the leftovers to constitute part of my breakfast the next day. 

Downhill from the town square. In the distance, the spire of the the church of St Michael the Archangel. Szewstwo = cobbler's. Good to see traditional crafts still in business. 

Below: looking up toward the mediaeval town gate...

Left: ...with its genuine mediaeval portcullis. The spire of the bastion is currently being repaired (with EU and Norwegian funds).

Below: the Nysa Łomnicka river runs past Bystrzyca, the town's original name coming from bystra, 'fast' – as in fast-flowing. A little further on, it joins the Nysa Kłodzka.

Below: the tower of the baszta rycerska ('knights' bastion'), at the town's north-eastern gate.

Below: looking up at the town from the southern flanks of the hill on which it stands.

Below: ulica Wojska Polskiego; my grandmother and her family lived on one floor of the smaller building in the centre of this pic; outside there stood a CPN petrol station; low-octane petrol fumes permeated the air outside the flat.

A view of the church of St Michael the Archangel. The building to the left has pre-war ghost signs faintly appearing; one reads Frühstück ('breakfast'). As old signs come to light, they are neither obliterated (as they would have been done in years gone by) nor accentuated with new paint. A few street signs have smaller ones beneath giving their pre-1945 names. The past is neither negated nor dwelt upon.

Below: the characteristic wooden-framed roof of a 19th century German railway station. The line running from Breslau (Wrocław) through Bystrzyca Kłodzka (Habelschwerdt) to the Austro-Hungarian border was opened in 1875. Bystrzyca Kłodzka station has been tastefully renovated.

I was impressed with the huge developmental progress made over my lifetime in this sleepy corner of provincial Poland; the quality of people's lives greatly enhanced compared to the way things were up to the late 1980s. A land touched by trauma, totalitarianism, forced deportations of entire peoples is now peaceful and prosperous. On this week, as Poland is about to celebrate 20 years of EU membership, I give profound thanks.

This time two years ago:
Got a bit of a cold (Pt 1)

This time three years ago:
Moon and bloom

This time five years ago:

The working week in town, in pics

This time eight years ago:
Brexit: head vs heart, migration vs economy

This time nine years ago:
Golf course update

This time 12 years ago:
The Shard changes London's skyline

This time 13 years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time 14 years ago:
Plans for the railway line to Radom

[Modernisation of a line it took 20 months to build is completed by 2022]