Książ is a magnificent castle sitting on the top of a hill in the heart of a huge wooded park. Apart from its intrensic fascination, it is spiced with all the ingredients that would make its story a bestseller: history, power, wealth, beauty, incest, Nazism, and war. I learnt about its existence at the tourist office where a brochure recommended a visit and while I was in Swidnica I decided to give it a try.
I had read about Kudowa Zdruj described as a pleasant town and was curious to check it out. From Kłodzko I rode a bus into the mountainous area toward the Czech border and after an hour's drive I was dropped at a stop along the main street a bit off the centre. From the start I was struck by the pretty period buildings whose style witnessed to the heyday of spa towns – a happy marriage between wood-and-brick mountain architecture and Art Nouveau decorative patterns. Then, in the town centre, stood the most impressive buildings, i.e. the historic Fürstenstein sanatorium, now called Polonia, the Zameczek and the Kurhaus. I felt amply gratified.
A lot of ink has been spilled about Auschwitz, and when I visited I felt that whatever I said, my words would be just too many. Having read Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz only a few months before, my memory was still fresh about the description of the places and life in the camp, and also the social dynamics that established themselves among the inmates. That extraordinary account depicted something that is no more, but lives on in our collective memory as the horror of contemporary history. The former extermination camp is now the domain of free-willing visitors rather than a place of confinement, but the stern brick buildings, now vacant, still stand to tell their appalling story.
Kłodzko was formerly called Glatz – and this is not just a learned detail, because this German name gives evidence to the region's history. The town, together with swathes of Silesia, was a dominion of the crowns of Bohemia and Habsburg, fell under the Prussian Kingdom, and only after the last war did it join Poland. The impressing fortress that looms over the town – now the stern antagonist to the pretty buildings, the churches, the ornate steeples and bridges below – was a key point of control over a strategic corridor for whatever dominating power. The fortress can be visited and it is an amazing sight, although, to be true, I felt that its full appreciation would have required a better understanding of military defence architecture. However, I let the mighty stone walls and the vast courtyards talk for themselves while I roamed on a lonesome visit, imagining the garrison once stationed here and the harsh military life that the soldiers led.
The inspiration came from the photo exhibit I happened to visit in Breslau. On a landing before the last flight of steps up the University Mathematic Tower my eyes fell on an enlarged photo, one of a series devoted to the cultural heritage of post-industrial Upper Silesia. I first gave it a distracted look, but I realised that all around the stair shaft there were more panels. The photos had English captions but the presentation was in German and Polish only. "The times when industrial plants reflected the prestige of technical progress and economic prosperity are long gone. Now the halls and powerful machines of yesterday are threatened with demolition or modernisation", it read.