Szczecin 1991

There were only a couple of cars in front of us as we crossed the border from Germany into Szczecin, Poland. They glanced at the passports, and that was it, just a few seconds. Before the government change, it would have been necessary to spend a lot of time and money getting visas, and changing a required amount of money. When we crossed the border from Poland to East Germany in 1985, it took three hours.

We found it very disturbing to visit this part of Poland. It appeared to us that Szczecin was in worse physical/economic condition than the Eastern German cities, even though Szczecin had been German until WW II, and both had been under Communist control for the past 45 years. Of all the cities we visited in Poland, Szczecin seems to be in the poorest condition. Even after a week or so in Eastern Germany, this part of Poland is a shock.

Emmy’s stepmother, Martha, was born and raised in Szczecin in the late 1800s, when it was a part of Germany, and called Stettin. Emmy remembers her saying that she would go with her mother to wash clothes in the Oder River. That rather dirty river is now the border between Poland and Germany.

The streets, sidewalks, and stores looked so depressing. If we would spend more time, maybe it wouldn’t look so bad to us, but it is depressing to see that people have to live this way. On the other hand, while no one is stopping them from cleaning up the place, most likely no one will volunteer, and perhaps money is not available to pay for the clean-up.

We had parked on the wide sidewalk of what appeared to be the main street, along with all the other vehicles, then walked a few blocks here and there. We looked in stores and found nothing we wanted to buy, even if we had some Polish money. A sidewalk vendor in Szczecin was selling drinks of some kind, using and reusing the same one glass, and we saw a fast-food restaurant named the Mic-Mac Hamburger House.

Two banks would not accept our Visa, Master Card, or Travelers Checks, when we wanted to exchange some money. Finally a lady in a bank told us where we could find a bank that would exchange money, and marked the location on a map. When we tried to take the Szczecin map with us, she replied that this was the only copy they had, and we couldn’t have it.