Poznan 1985

When we arrived in Poznan, at about 2:00 PM, the only problem we could think of was that we had no problem to think of, but we wanted to meet the Dean of the School of Law at the local University, who’s family was living in our friend the college Professor's apartment — we had met him when he was a marketing professor at Cal State Northridge. (A story told in more detail at "Poznan, Professor and Family.")

The Dean and his English speaking daughter, Dany, took us for a tour of the city. They have a tiny old car, just barely room for the four of us. For some years now, his name has been on a list to buy a new car, and he expects to get one maybe in 1989.

We stopped at the Poznan Cathedral, built of brick, and with carved brick pillars inside. Reminded us of the columns in the Cathedrals at Bologna, Italy, and in Lübeck, Germany. In Poznan's main downtown square there are arcaded buildings with columns, all around the square. In the middle there is the City Hall, and a group of buildings with smaller arcades, called “dwarf arcades.” The buildings in the market square were being renovated. Just after the war when they were first reconstructed, the work was done too fast, and not too well.

On one side of the square, there is a museum dedicated to the workers. It’s in a building built in a hurry when Napoleon stopped to visit, on his way to Russia. We were told it’s a government museum now, so the locals won’t visit.

We also visited two other Cathedrals or churches, one on the west side of the square, the other on the southeast corner. The interior of both are of a very interesting style. It was too dark to take a picture with the 35 mm camera, and almost too dark to see it. The trimmed marble pillars are magnificent, and what artwork we could make out in the darkness was beautiful.

The professor had someone open the door at the University so we could see the inside of the Administration Building, and the beautiful auditorium.

In front of the University is a monument with two vertical portions of a cross, maybe 30 feet high, the horizonal piece goes in front of one and behind the other. They appear to be tied together by a huge rope. This memorial has been shown on TV at times, as the place where the people would place flowers, the army would remove them, then the people would immediately put them back.