Some words about Łódź

Allgemeines über die Stadt - Beschreibung einiger Sehenswürdigkeiten

Well, it's time to write something about Łódź. It is the 2nd biggest town (although sometimes it is written it would be the third after Kraków.), but for sure one of the most unknown Polish town abroad. I think, it belongs to the towns you normally driving through without paying any attention to it or you are happy not to live there. Many people call Łódź ugly (also some citizens). In my opinion, you can't say that. It is true, that Łódź has no mighty castle, nor a romantic mediaeval old-town. There is also no busy harbour or sunny beaches. You also can't find a prommenade along a river. On the other hand there also no modern plazas or fancy skycrapers. Well, what is in Łódź. First you must know, that it is an old Industrial town whose history really starts in 19th century. From this area you'll find a lot of old industrial estates, tenements (Mietskaserne) and also palaces of the factory owners, who became in some cases incredibly rich. Unfortunatley the most of these buildings are in a very shabby (schäbig) conditions and it is difficult to say, if people still live or work in these buildings.
However there a handfull atractions in Łódź. The main promenade called ul. Piotrkowska is the centre of the town. Along this street, which is the longest street for Pedestrians in Poland (ca. 5km), there a lot of fancy old houses, hotels, restaurants and shops.Around 2km of the street is a Pedestrian zone, nevertheless this part is used by cars as well. So I am not sure yet, if Pedestrian zone has the same meaning in Poland like in Germany.
Another highlight of Łódź is Manfaktura. It is an old factory complex, which was owned by the richest industrialist of Łódź, which was rebuilt in a culture and entertainment area, whre you can find a huge shopping-centre, dozens of restaurants and pubs, museums and galleries. It looks fanatstic. And it seems to be always crowded by people.
Then there is also Księży Młyn,an district whcih was built by a factory owner for his workers. The biggest part of it, isn't yet renovated, so that there live people of all strata (Gesellschaftsschichten). It is a very peacful area, which has some kind of rural character. However, they started to rebuilt in another part of this quarter the old factories into fancy and modern lofts. So it seems, that is just a question of time until the whole Księży Młyn, will change in posh area for the upper-class.
On thing which makes or better made Łódź special is it's multicultural society. Before the war it was home of four cultures: Polish, Jewish, Russian and German. The most of Jewish inhabitants were killed by Germans during occupation. The most Germans left after WW1 or then WW2. But still there is the festival of the four cultures.
The Germans founded during the occupation of Poland in WW2 in Łódź the biggest Ghetto for Jews. It differd a lot of others like in Warsaw, as it was not so croweded and it was managed quite well by an Jewish industrialist.They also had their own currency. Nevertheless most inhabitants of the Ghettos were send to the concentration camps in the end of the war. Today the Jewish community is quite small.

Łódź is also a very green city. So you can find here a lot of parcs and the biggest muncipial wood in Europe.

All in all after one week living here I can say, that is probably not the most beautiful town but it is good town to live in. (Well, let's see how I will think about it in four months.)