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 Author | Topic: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's (Read 1,406 times) |
wszelazek
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|  | Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Thread Started on May 12, 2008, 4:49pm » | |
Can you help with this, please?
I need information on how people lived in pre WWII small town Poland. If anyone has info on Grajewo fantastic, but any town will do. For example
Was there widespread electricity?
Did people use gas or solid fuel to cook with?
What was the public transport system like.
What % of urban roads were paved.
Were there cinemas in all/many towns?
How many households had radios?
What was the school system like?
But onfo on *any* topic would br great.
Many thanks
W.
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jimpres
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #1 on May 12, 2008, 5:36pm » | |
I can't talk about Polish life in the 1930's. However, I can talk about my first visit to Poland in 1978.
They had electricity, one bulb in each room hanging from the ceiling. The homes still have straw roofs and wood siding.
They used wood to cook on a wood burning stove. The stove was located where four walls met and a 1/4 of the stove was
in each of the rooms for heating.
No refrigerator, meat was put in a milk can and dropped down a well to keep it cool.
Killing of animals was rotated to each home so the meat would not spoil.
Most used bicycles to go shopping, but busses were available for longer trips then 15km.
Roads were paved with cobble stones and dirt.
A town of 18K have one movie house, not open 24/7
No radios as I remember.
School system similar to todays I think, Jaga will know.
I know after WWII they had nothing and we sent clothes and medicine to them sewn into
the hems of coats.
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Jaga
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #2 on May 12, 2008, 7:44pm » | |
Hello,
this is a very interesting question. I think the electricity was introduced in Polish countryside after WW II (40-es and early 50-es), but in towns people had electricity before the war. I will try to look at some of the statistical information in my old books and will share with you.
Trains were very common transportation even before ww II, people had cars, but few had private cars. There were buses and trams especially in towns before ww II
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Jaga
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #3 on May 13, 2008, 12:36am » | |
+++No radios as I remember+++
Jim, in 1978??? There were radios and TV everywhere! The TV was mainly black-white but it was there.
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Jaga
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #4 on May 13, 2008, 12:44am » | |
Now, going back to the 30-es. In this time Poland was still divided into Poland A and Poland B - that means some parts of Poland were much better developed than the others. This was the consequence of the partitions that lasted over 100 years until 1918. So, the poorest regions were on the East and the richest on the West (probably Warsaw, Poznan and Wielkopolska and Silesia were the most developed).
In Eastern Poland many small towns were inhabited mainly by Jewish people. Often Jews were more than 50% of the small town residents. These Jews were mainly sellsmen, craftsmen, doctors etc. They were not very rich and many of them were killed during WW II.
The main source of electricity was coal, maybe in poorer region it was wood, but from what I know at least Silesia and Krakow had oven on coal.
People had radios before the WW II, but they were confiscated by Germans so that people would not listen to radio BBC from London which had a station in Polish through the war.
The main roads in towns were paved, some with cobblestones. I still remember when we drove to Lvov in middle 80-es - Lvov had cobblestone main roads! It was a shock for me.
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Jaga
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #5 on May 13, 2008, 12:59am » | |
Education became obligatory for all just after Poland gained independence in 1918.
Theoretically all children were going to attend the 7-years elementary school, but there was a shortage of the teachers especially in the poorer Eastern rural regions. So, in the East Poland only about 70% of children were schooled, some only in 4-class rural schools, whereas in the West 95-100% of children were attending 7 years school.
Referring to the transport. The train transport was well developed in Poland, it was electrified in 50% before the war. The roads were in worse shape and it stayed this way until now.
Now it is getting much better with Polish roads because we got money from EU for road infrastructure
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jimpres
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #6 on May 13, 2008, 10:37am » | |
Jaga, on the farms 150km north of Warsaw my family had no when I first visited. I'm guessing they had radio but I did not see or hear it.
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Jaga
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #7 on May 13, 2008, 11:22am » | |
Jim,
sure, I understand.
By the way, Poland had one of the largest radio tower station in Europe before the war - in Raszyn near Warsaw.
in 1929 there were about 1 mln radio listeners, which was still low compared to Western Europe.
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kaima
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #8 on May 13, 2008, 11:40am » | |
Jaga,
You mention 'Poland A and Poland B' to denote the differences between the formerly partitioned parts of Poland during the inter-war period.
Is that the phrase that was used in Poland at the time or is that an easy designation to use at this time? I am just wondering what the official designation was. Sometimes the official phrases are colorful, other times they are quite obscure. , but they also reflect the political sensitivities of the times.
Kai
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Jaga
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #9 on May 13, 2008, 1:35pm » | |
May 13, 2008, 11:40am, kaima wrote:Jaga,
You mention 'Poland A and Poland B' to denote the differences between the formerly partitioned parts of Poland during the inter-war period.
Is that the phrase that was used in Poland at the time or is that an easy designation to use at this time? I am just wondering what the official designation was. Sometimes the official phrases are colorful, other times they are quite obscure. , but they also reflect the political sensitivities of the times.
Kai |
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Kai,
I think this phrase was used before the WW II - about Polska A and Polska B. As you see, since Poland was divided between three countries, it does not go exactly on partition lines (because in this case we will have to have also Poland C). The boarder between Poland A and B was along the rivers San and Bug so it was the Eastern-Western division. Poland A used 93% of electricity and 80% of iron and steel products. Poland B was mainly inhabited by Jews, Belarussians, Russyns and Ukrainians. It was mainly agricultural and primitive.
In order to eliminate differences between Poland A and B Polish prime-minister Kwiatkowski started building so called COP (Central Industrial Region) in the middle between both regions.
here is more about it in Polish:
http://www.bryk.pl/teksty/liceum/histori....pospolitej.html
Here is Wikipedia article about COP in English:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralny_Okr%C4%99g_Przemys%C5%82owy
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tufta
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Jaga
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #11 on May 13, 2008, 10:23pm » | |
very interesting movies. I really enjoyed them!
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Jaga PolishSiteNothing is black and white. One country's terrorist is another country freedom fighter. Spy is either a hero or a traitor - depending where. |
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wszelazek
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #12 on May 14, 2008, 4:59am » | |
Thanks for all the info. the region I am interested in is up near Bialystok definitely ex-Russian partition. Wrt radios, my father used to talk of the Doctor in the street who had a radio and everyone would gather round the open window yo listen to the news.
Thanks again.
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jimpres
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #13 on May 15, 2008, 1:43pm » | |
Wszelazek,
You might try some of the roots web forums for help. Jim
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freetobe
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| | Re: Help wanted on Polish life in the 1930's
« Reply #14 on May 15, 2008, 10:55pm » | |
Wszelazek,
My Matka was from a tiny village(Bogaty or some similar spellenig) now in Belarus,very close to the current Polish/Belarus border. My Ojciec was from Sopocknie( Soposkin) also now in Belarus and not far from the Polish border. I know that Matka's family are still somewhere in eastern Poland, in the Bialystok area. Matka came to the US in 1917. At that time there were some kind of communication, probably telegraph and mail as the immigrant girls travelling to the US had someone who met them on arrival in New York and brought them to their employer. Most often it was an RC priest from a Polish immigrant organization that found employment for the girls as housemaids with respectable American families. Hope this provides an insight for you. Also agree with Jim look into roots web forums. Good luck.
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