Poland should make its own historical films and focus more on the Poles ousted from their country rather than argue with the head of the Federation of the German expellees or fret over foreign flicks, writes a contributor to the Polska daily.

Press reviewed by Alicja Baczyńska

Instead of enganging in constant face-offs with Erika Steinbach, Poles should establish their own center for expellees and make movies on history themselves, claims TV producer Witold Orzechowski in a commentary for the Polska daily. He claims that instead of exerting pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the selection of board members of the future Berlin-based refugee museum, which can only strain the Polish-German relations, it would be wiser to inform the western neighbour about the Poles that were driven out of their homes in the first place during World War II. There is no common view on Europe’s past and modern history is being rewritten as we speak. Germany has recently released movies such as Gustloff and Sophie Scholl exposing the atrocities of war, whereas the Americans have filmed the story of the courageous Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, and have made heroes of the Bielski partisans, that historians hold responsible for the killing of Polish resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, writes the columnist.

Rather than fund mediocre movies, why don’t Poles make a high-budget production that would, for example, expose the widespread deportations of Polish blonde blue-eyed children from the southeastern parts of the country to German foster parents in the early 1940s. ‘Will Poles forever refrain from portraying their perspective on the past, leaving historical depictions to other countries, just because they lack the will, money or ambition to do so?’, wonders the producer.

Local authorities of Warsaw’s Żoliborz district have set out to establish a small colony of prefab homes for its most problematic residents, writes Życie Warszawy. A group of seventeen people has been selected to move in, representing a variety of difficult cases. Not only are they people who continuously fail to pay the rent, but also those who vandalize their homes or abuse their family members. They face eviction, yet they cannot be thrown out onto the street, and are thus given free accommodation in hotels. After three months, however, they return home and go back to their old habits.

Warsaw residents living close to the prospective site of the prefab barracks are worried that the location may turn to a dangerous ghetto in no time. Local authorities of the capital’s other districts tacitly agree that each quarter could use such a complex, but refrain from such undertakings as they provoke controversy among the local residents across the city. Psychologists warn that by setting up such communities of people with a troubled past, social pathologies may only escalate. Yet if you transfer solely those who seek to overcome their problems and achieve something in life, and you throw in a couple of therapists to help them out, the idea is bound to succeed, says a psychologist quoted by the paper.

Head of one of Warsaw’s housing cooperatives has expressed his dissatisfaction with the widely awaited ban on the omnipresent building wraps to be issued by the Ministry of Infrastructure. In an interview for the local supplement of Gazeta Wyborcza, he explains that a deal with an advertising company is the only way to accrue the required sum for maintenance and refurbishing. His tenement house has been covered in ads for five years now, and has since collected a hefty sum of over 100,000 euros. The cooperative head lists extensive works done such as fixing the roof, changing the gas piping, and reinforcing a ceiling in danger of collapsing, and adds that the regular refurbishing fund would not do the trick.
He argues that introducing restrictions on placing the wraps would make sense only in two decades as now buildings are badly in need of refurbishing after 50 years of neglect under communist rule and the years that followed. Only those tenants, whose windows would be covered with the wraps could take part in voting; so as to ensure a fair decision. And they approved, though it was a bitter pill to swallow – but the only way to save the building from ruin, says the interviewee.