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KIELCE |
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KIELCE , the regional capital, is nothing much to look at, having
undergone the standard postwar development, but it has a relaxed, down-at-heel,
rural atmosphere. Long the chosen summer residence of the bishops of
Kraków, who furnished the city with its main architectural attractions,
the town retains little more than echoes of its grander past. Its place
in the postwar record is assured, as the site of the infamous July 1946
pogrom when over forty Jewish survivors of the Nazi terror were murdered
by locals inflamed by rumours of the attempted ritual murder of a
Gentile child. On a more contemporary note, the economic transformations
of the post-communist era are beginning to show through - albeit much
more slowly than in Kraków - in the increasing tally of new shops, cafés
and restaurants in evidence in the city centre.
The city
All the monuments worth seeing are concentrated around a relatively
small central area, bisected by ul. Sienkiewicza, the main city street.
North of Sienkiewicza is the pleasant main Rynek , lined with crumbling
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mansions, one of which (no. 3/5)
houses a regional museum (Tues & Thurs-Sun 9am-4pm; 4zl), with a fairly
forgettable collection of local archeological finds and ethnographic
exhibits. More diverting are the occasional exhibitions of contemporary
Polish art that visit the museum throughout the year, generally in
summer.
South of Sienkiewicza, on another square, pl. Zamkowy, you'll find the
cathedral - Romanesque, lost in the later Baroque reconstruction -
highlights of the murky interior being a fine Renaissance monument in
red marble to a female member of the local Zebrzydowski family, sculpted
by Il Padovano, a sumptuous early Baroque high altarpiece from the
workshops of Kraków, and some elaborate Rococo decorative carvings in
the choir stalls. During major religious festivals, the square east of
the cathedral is packed with smartly dressed locals, many in regional
folk costume, processing solemnly around the square.
A short way west of the cathedral is the Palac Biskupów Krakowskich (Kraków
Bishop's Palace), an impressive early Baroque complex, built on a closed
axial plan mimicking the layout of a period north Italian villa
supplemented, as in Wawel Castle, by features such as a sturdy-looking
roof adjusted to the demands of a northern climate. Constructed in the
late 1630s as a residence for the bishops of Kraków, under whose
ecclesiastical jurisdiction the city and surroundings fell, up until the
late eighteenth century, the palace now houses another regional museum (Wed-Sun
9am-4pm, plus May-June & Sept-Oct Tues 10am-6pm; 5zl), this time among
the country's weightier ones.
A mazey selection of ground-floor and upstairs rooms are taken up with
an extensive collection of Polish art from the seventeenth century
onwards. As often in such museums, the early works are effectively an
extended portrait gallery of the Polish aristocracy, alongside the usual
selection of patriotic favourites such as Kosciuszko and Prince Józef
Poniatowski. The nineteenth- and twentienth-century rooms contain a
notable selection of Mloda Polska movement-era art, including works by
Wyspianski, some typically distorted, dreamlike Witkiewicz compositions
and a diverting group of self-portraits by Malczewski. On a military
note, the museum's collection of swords and other weapons of war from
across the centuries culminates in the Pilsudski sanctuary, established
in the venerated prewar leader's honour, a few years after his death in
1935, and kept pretty much the same ever since.
Most rooms of the upper floor comprise the former bishop's apartments,
adorned with a sumptuous array of period furnishings, several of them
still retaining their original decoration. The most notable feature here
is the decorated high ceilings with intricately painted larch beams and
elaborate friezes running around the tops of the walls. The finest
example of this effect is in the Great Dining Hall , the frieze here
consisting of a mammoth twin-level series of portraits of Kraków bishops
and Polish monarchs. A number of apartments display some striking
ceiling paintings from the workshop of Thomas Dolabella, notably the
Senatorial Hall in the west wing, featuring the ominous Judgement of the
Polish Brethren , with a grand, sweeping depiction of scenes from the
Polish-Swedish and Polish-Muscovite wars of the seventeenth century in
the adjoining room.
Working your way round the back of the museum to the south brings you to
ul. Zamkowa, and one of the more something sights of Kielce, the former
prison at no. 3, now the site of a Museum Pamieci Narodowej (Museum of
National Remembrance; Wed, Sat & Sun 10am-5pm; donation). Used by the
Gestapo in World War II, and subsequently inherited by the communist
security police, the prison was the site of innumerable torturings and
murders between 1939 and 1956. The cells have been preserved in pretty
much their original state - note the cages built over the windows to
prevent notes or anything else from being passed outside to those
prisoners lucky enough to be allowed some exercise in the yard.
Further south still, ul. Kaczmarka leads south to the Rezerwat
Geologiczny Kadzielnia (Kadzielnia Geological Reserve), a former
limestone quarry now laid out as an (albeit scruffy) park. With bleak
crags surrounded by scrub, it's a surprise to find such a seemingly wild
landscape so close to a city centre. At the far end of the reserve is an
open-air concert venue, the "amphitheatre", put to good use in summer
when various cultural events take place here.
While memories of the notorious Kielce Pogrom may have weighed heavily
in wider postwar Polish-Jewish relations, the same could not be said in
the city itself, where for many years there was no effective recognition
of the event in the form of an official monument or commemoration. This
has now been rectified - albeit at the instigation of a private Jewish
foundation, rather than the city authorities. The house where the pogrom
occurred, at no. 7/8 Planty, is a short walk west of the square on the
edge of the canal that cuts across ul. Sienkiewicza. It displays a
recently erected commemorative plaque in Polish, Hebrew and English "to
the 42 Jews murdered & during anti-Semitic riots" - a commendably honest
description of an event of which some in Poland would prefer not to be
reminded. Other sites of historic Jewish interest are the former
synagogue on al. IX Wieków Kielc, now an archive building, and the
crumbling cemetery some way south of the centre in the Pakosz district
(bus #4 passes fairly close by - get off on ul. Pakosz), where around a
hundred gravestones are still standing, along with a dignified monument
to local victims of the Holocaust.
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