Dom Śląski w Krakowie. Geneza - historia - teraźniejszość

Abstrakt

THE SILESIAN HOUSE, ORIGINS AND HISTORY TO THE PRESENT DAY

The Silesian House was built at 2 Pomorska Street in Cracow in 1931-1936 on the initiative of the Society for the Defence of the Southern and the Western Borderland and the Małopolska Union for the Defence of the Western Borderland, the latter established in 1929. The Silesian House was planned to serve Polish people from Silesia who came to Cracow on patriotic and educational tours and Silesian youth who came to study in the royal city of Cracow.
During the Nazi occupation, the monumental building at the intersection of 2 Pomorska and 1 Królewska Streets was seized by the Germans to serve the Nazi’s repressive system. From autumn 1939 to January 1945 it housed the headquarters of the Sipo and the SD of the Cracow District of the Generalgouvernement ( Komandeur der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD im Distrikt Krakau - KdS). Former prison cells in the cellars of the Silesian House, which have survived to the present day are a testimony to crimes committed during the war by the German police organisations, and in particular by the officers of the so-called “IVth Department”, i.e. the Gestapo. Several hundred inscriptions can still be read on the walls of three cells in Pomorska Street. They illustrate the tragic history of Poland during WW IL After 1945 the Silesian House was returned to the Polish Western Union. We do not have comprehensive historic accounts about the history of the building at 2 Pomorska Street during the Stalinist era. Probably for a few months in 1945, during the stay of Officer-Cadet School of Infantry and Cavalry, various persons were detained in the former Gestapo cells retained by the communist repression system. In November 1981 a branch of the Historical Museum of the City of Cracow devoted to Polish martyrdom during WWII was established with the primary goal of preserving the national memory, and in particular the former Gestapo prison cells.