Why should we be concerned with a building in Wroclaw that used to be home to workshops for repairing railway equipment (ZNTK) but does not exist anymore? What does a plant tell us that never was of importance and did not play much of a role in the political changes of 1989? The faith of the ZNTK plant is a symbol for the changes resulting from 1989 in Wroclaw. It is an example for the development of working and living conditions in the industrial society to those of services and tourism. It also tells us something about how we deal with the past. The year 1989 was more than ‘just’ a year of fear and insecurity or a time of hope and joy in Poland. 1989 is a symbol and a myth affecting our reality. The political, economic and social transformation, which in Poland had already set in before 1989 and still is in process today, has provided new chances and challenges for the city of Wroclaw. A new identity had begun to develop in the city even before 1989. Since then, we have been talking about its roots and making efforts to become familiar with the past. The ZNTK plant was situated near the city centre, about 8 kilometres from the Market Square, but well away from the main roads. It was founded in 1866 in the wake of railway construction in Lower Silesia. The plant was regularly modernized and expanded and thus soon developed to become the most modern railway workshop in Lower Silesia. In 1945, the plant shared the faith of the heavily destroyed town, then still German. The German town major ordered the plant to be burned down. It was reconstructed after the war and was in operation for another 50 years. The ZNTK was an important site for the opposition in Wroclaw in the 1980s. The Solidarnosc workers’ union was active there. After martial law had been declared in Poland in 1981, the workers of the plant were among the first to go on strike. In 1996, the plant was privatized, with plans to restructure it. But the plant could not be saved from bankruptcy. It ceased to exist in 1999. Early in the 21st century the building was bought by an investor. The land development plan of the City of Wroclaw was changed. Even though many historians and artists fought to save it, all efforts failed. Transforming the structure into a concert hall or a museum proved too expensive. And some maintained the old walls of the plant did not suit the new image of the city. There are plans to build a new housing estate on the premises.The old bricks scattered about the site are all that is left of the old plant.

The exhibition updated and questioned the history of the plant through an installation made of the original bricks of the plant into which a projection of up-to-date photos of the area was integrated.

Tadeusz Mincer, born 1983, philosopher and culture researcher.