Lodz - the city of great past...

n the past, this area was covered with fields, bogs and forests. Nothing was able to grow here, no city was able to unreel. But it is a fact that the biggest European cotton business was built right here. It all started in 1332 when Lodz was given the city status. Then in 1433 it was just a small town with a church and the town hall. The date of the turning-point is year 1839 when the first steam machine was installed here. Step by step more manufactures here and more factories were built. Most factory owners were Germans. People like Ludwig Geyer, Ludwig Grohmann or Charles Sheibler were citizens of Lodz. Let me introduce to You a person who knew them all, who knew the world that they have built.......

- My first question is concerns living in those times, What did life look like in your youth?

- Well there is one very important thing that I have to say before we start this interview. Today when a girl is fifteen she is almost an adult, in „those” times she was a child. And I was fifteen when the war started, so this description is more a description of a child, not of a serious person...

- Sure but were “those” times very different from ours?

- Well yes. People knew where their place was. If someone was an authority, he had a great respect. Everyone was wise became an example that must be followed, and mostly it was followed...

- I see. My second question is - were the Germans treated as a different nation, were they living in special areas?

- I am always saying that this city had a specific atmosphere. It was making everyone a member of Polish society. People were coming here with all their goods to start a new life. The Germans were, we can say, “imported” here because there were experts in their profession. No, there were no special areas, and no national areas. People treated each other like in the American westerns, in a hard way. Cheaters were outlaws. The enclaved you said about were created on a different basis. It was like in our times, The most important category was wealth . There were classes of people, there was a class of poor people who work in the factories, middle class who also work in the factories but on higher positions, and the richest who were factories' owners... Nobody was treated as a minority, people were never categorised by nationality.

- And were those middle class people visible in the society scene? I suppose those very rich were...

- They were noticeable, because they were all the time with those rich ones. They went to factories, to clubs and to restaurants together. In their workers' society there was a specific meaning of honor .If someone was a close friend of a rich man, God save the one who would say something bad about this man. The honor meant that they were on the same level, in spite of the fact that one could be very rich, and the other very poor. They helped each other very often...

-After these words, I am wondering whether the middle class also played such a significant role in building the atmosphere of the city?

- Hmm...I will answer this question by telling you a short story. Once after the war I was working in a factory. One day my boss came to me, and asked me “...what is the most important part of the machine?” I answered that there was no such par, and I was right. And with this middle class it was the same. That's because a machine has the heart (rich people in this meaning) but there is a small cog-wheel that makes the heart beat (those were those middle and low class people). So of course everyone was building the atmosphere of the city, to the same extent.

- I would also like to know if the Germans were so popular in other parts of industry as well?

- Well yes, but I can tell you that even those “other parts” were strictly connected with the cotton business. For example they were working in banks, in transport, they were cotton distributors and such...

- I want to ask you about the children. Were there any special schools for German children; were between them and Polish children any differences?

- Most children were going to the same schools. It was like this, because their parents felt members of the Polish community. Of course, there was a special school for those who wanted their children to be taught in the German language. But if someone sent his child to this school, it was known that he has pro-German political view. Differences? Well you could feel them only before the war, when some children openly declared that they were Germans, but still there were many other children who claimed that they were Polish, in spite of the fact that their name was a German name...

- And my last question: Was the German community excluded from Polish culture after the year 1939 ?

- In my opinion it was, because everyone who was not born a peasant or a worker was excluded from culture. However, nobody regarded the fact that they were already Polish.

Thank you for answering my questions.