Memories
of Schneidemühl
Very little of the original architecture
of
the 19th and early 20th century
remained in Schneidemühl
after the end of
the Second World War. Additionally, successive post-war
Communist city councils
had little
regard for sentiments, as
new blocks of Stalinist-style
concrete buildings made room
for a relocated population
in the reborn city of Piła.
The result of the
rebuilding process,
possibly mixed with the wish to
eradicate the German past
of the city,
was
the elimination of several streets and some of the remaining old
buildings.
Here is a short eclectic
choice
of old photographs.
(Photo courtesy J. Rosenberg, Chile)
A south-west view of the
synagogue, before the enlargement of the west entrance,
— summer 1890, as seen from across the Wilhelms-Platz.
(Photo courtesy J. Rosenberg, Chile)
Hindenburg
Platz,
originally known as Alter Markt,
ca. 1930.
This used to be the
centre of the old town of Piła in the 16th century.
(Photo courtesy J.
Rosenberg, Chile)
The
Bürgergarten,
once known as "Straubel's
Tivoli," formerly a favorite
weekend restaurant for the populace.
On 21 February 1940 this building
was taken over by the Gestapo and became
one of the many
detention centres of the
Jews of
Schneidemühl and the
surrounding areas who
had been arrested on that day. Hundreds of detainees
were forced
to languish here for several
months under inhuman conditions.
Many of the elderly perished in
this locale,
while others were eventually deported
from here to labor camps,
hospices and
ultimately, in 1941-42, to the death camps.
(Photo courtesy J.
Rosenberg, Chile)
February 1945: t
he Soviet Red Army, fighting street by
street in Schneidemühl
.
.
(Photo courtesy J. Rosenberg, Chile)
14 February 1945 — the capitulation.
One of the countless ruins —
all that
remained of the once fashionable Friedrichstrasse
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Copyright ©
2006-2009
Peter Simonstein Cullman