Green Border by Agnieszka Holland

Green Border is a 2023 movie by Agnieszka Holland. 

The mood reminds me of the 2013 Oscar winner Ida. The "green" is the reference to the forest on the border between Belarus and Poland. It fades from green to black and white in the first scene of the movie and stays black and white till the end. It is a soul crashing drama, but it is also a documentary. I remember that Belarusian border crisis. I think Green Border presents the people and the 2021 events quite objectively. The epilogue is from another refugee crisis, from the Ukrainian-Polish border in February 2022. 

Unlike in some Hollywood productions, main actors have connections with the characters they play (ethnicity, language, life experience) and play convincingly. I watched it on Australian SBS and it is shown with characters speaking: Arabic, Russian, English, Polish, French, with English subtitles. Highly recommended.

If you like this move, you may also like Agnieszka Holland's 1990 movie Europe, Europe.

Getting Old

There are three major problems experienced in that stage of life: declining health and disappointment with people and systems.

The declining health is obvious. You start wearing glasses, first just for reading, then also for seeing better at dusk and at distance. You cannot hear as well. You cannot run as well. You feel pain where there was none before. The back pain is especially cruel. Waking up one morning, going to the bathroom, sitting down on the toilet... and not being able to get up. Your body is breaking down.

This tree was too weak for the strong winds.

The disappointment in people happens throughout life: as a teenager you go on a organised foreign trip and lend money to some girl, so she can buy something cheaply^, and when you return she keeps the thing, but refuses to pay you back and her mother scolds you. You get in a car accident and the cop believes the lying truck driver, not you. You lease your apartment to your work colleague, while you work abroad, and they leave without giving you any notice or paying last month's rent. Your brother stops talking with you. Some of your friends stop calling you back. Your neighbour is dry cutting concrete 2 meters from your window, and doesn't give a f*ck about the dust blowing your way. These things happen, but they are more on an individual level. When you get older, you start being disappointed with large groups of the society. How the f*ck was a slimy pedophile, rapist, cheater, liar, and a murderer elected the president of the United States? How the f*ck was a bully, football hooligan, pimp, drug addict, and scammer elected the president of Poland? People are stupid.

Koala habitat "cleared" for car oriented, low density housing.

And then, there is the problem of losing trust in systems. You see how politicians, together with state employees and a market research company rig a public consultation and environmental protection processes to build a motorway through koala habitat. You start seeing misinformation, not just in the social media, but also in the mainstream media. You start seeing problems with the international rankings, sanctions against some countries, but not others, often repeated political and historical narratives. You start noticing who owns what. You start seeing politicians turning a blind eye towards obvious injustice, shaking hands with monsters, as if nothing happened. You see how little human life and health is worth to the people at the top. You start seeing improbable election results and election fraud that neither the politicians, nor the state institutions tasked with ensuring fair elections, want investigated. You start seeing how the system is quick and ruthless against the weak and how slow and toothless it is against the powerful. You keep reading opinion polls indicating that the people want one thing, and see the politicians ignoring it and doing another. You read the Epstein files and you realise that even the worst conspiracy theories may be true, and the institutions tasked with catching criminals allow the most despicable people to walk free. The systems are unfair.

Forest destroyed for car oriented shopping in Gold Coast.

Is it any wonder that older people are often grumpy? Ignorance is bliss. Children are happy, because they don't know what is out there yet. Young people can be happy, if they are healthy, trusting and still not experienced. When you have an inquisitive nature, with age you realise that you saw too many bad things first hand, read too many books, talked with too many people. You know that everything is f*cked up.

Cold, snowy winters like this, typical in my youth, are becoming rare in Poland.

Is the only way to win (live a content life), to not play? Stop watching and reading news. Stop having deeper conversations. Stop doing yard-work. Stop wanting good things for people, animals, and the environment. Stop caring.

No.

Yes, your body is breaking down, people are stupid, systems are unfair, and everything is f*cked up, but...

You still have many years of life ahead of you. Just don't lift heavy things, sleep well, eat healthy and in moderation, stay away from the things and people that stress you the most, but be close to the people that care about you. You will experience joy, learn new things, laugh and joke.

Not all people are stupid, and not in all respects. There are people who, when presented with a reasonable argument, will listen, think and learn. People change too. We all say or do something stupid or bad from time to time. Don't hold grudges forever.

Not all systems are unfair, and not all the time. Sometimes, one good person can make the outcome right. A journalist who cares about the truth, a judge who cares about justice, a politician who cares about the common good, or a billionaire with a mission that does not cause human misery or environmental destruction. It is important to do your part. To make your little corner of the world a slightly better place. It is important to vote. It's not true that all politicians are bad, or equally bad. Sometimes, you need to get off your high horse and vote for the lesser evil - I'm thinking of you Steve Wozniak, and you my younger brother. Your vote, assuming the elections are not rigged, may decide if my daughter gets the critical medical help when she needs it. It is f*cking personal. Not voting, staying quiet when harm is being done to someone else, makes you a bad person.

Being religious may help navigate through life's storms, but religions have a history of diving us, so I would be very careful here not to fall into some form of "us versus them", which may lead to hatred and war. We are in this together, regardless where we live, how we look, or what we believe in.

There is an idea that Irena Sandler, Marek Edelman and Władysław Bartoszewski practiced: 

"People should be judged as either good or bad. Race, background, religion, education, or wealth don't matter. The only thing that counts is what kind of human being you are."

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^ It was July or August 1989. We were going to Moscow. Before the trip, we all could exchange the same amount of Polish złoty into Soviet roubles at the official exchange rate. The inflation in Poland was rampant, 680% by December 1989. People kept savings in US dollars or German marks. The price of everything was calculated in US dollars and often you used US dollars or the Pewex equivalents ("bony") to buy foreign made things, like jeans or cassette tapes. It was also a time when there was a shortage of many consumer goods in Poland. People were buying US dollars, travelling abroad, exchanging US dollars for local currency, buying things and bringing them to Poland to sell. My mother did it a few times. The girl in question used up her allowance of roubles and wanted more to buy a hair dryer. I still had my roubles. I agreed to give them to her, but I asked her to pay me back in Poland in US dollars, at the exchange rate at the time when I bought the roubles. She agreed. It was a fair deal. When we returned to Poland, she didn't return the money. When I finally went to her apartment, her mother scolded me, saying I shouldn't be making such deals with kids - we were both teenagers, similar age, I think. I don't remember if she returned any money to me. I was quite shocked. Perhaps only the Polish złoty at the fixed official rouble exchange rate, which was at that time probably worth half. The hair dryer was worth at least a few times more. It was perhaps the first time I felt cheated. Almost 40 years later, I still remember it.

Now, that I think about it, 5 years later there was another thing. My step-father gave me his old car for free. I was a uni student. He should have kept it, it would be worth good money now, as even back then it was already a vintage model - one of the first Fiat 125p 1300 with many original Italian parts. It looked like this, but orange. I didn't appreciate it back then. I had no garage, and I had no money for repairs. The brakes were very bad. I had a little fender-bender with a member of the parliament, because his car turned and stopped to let pedestrians cross, and I, behind him, could only watch in horror how long my car took to stop after pressing on the breaks. I also let my younger brother take the car for rides with his friends. He didn't have a licence, one of his friends did. They crashed it. Not seriously, but a bit more than a fender-bender. Finally, the car would not start anymore. It was just sitting in the parking lot. I didn't know it back then, but it was just a flat battery. I put an ad in the paper to sell it. Some young guys came, they started it, we signed the contract. They didn't have the full amount, only half. We agreed that they would bring the rest later. I gave them the keys and they drove off. That was the last I saw them. 

Many years later, we were selling a house, and we agreed with the realtor on a minimum sale price. The otherwise very nice guy, still forced us to sell 5% below that. The trick worked like this: the nominal price in the sales contract was the minimum price we requested - which made the agent, according to him, entitled to his 3.5% fee: he found the customer willing to buy it for the price acceptable to us, so his part of the agreement with us was fulfilled. But, in the details of the sale contract, we as sellers, had to include a phrase that we would give the buyer "up to" X amount for "mortgage points". The scam is that the buyer will always use up X, because this lowers their monthly repayment. If the buyer had to use their own money to buy the points, they would need to keep the house way past the break-even point to come ahead. The X in our case was about 5% of the sale price.

Yeah, I have trust issues.

Europe Trip 2025 - Katowice

I passed through Katowice many times before, visiting my family in Silesia, but this was the first time I explored it on my own.

Katowice (pop. 287k) is the capital of the Silesian voivodeship, and the biggest of the 19 cities that create the Upper-Silesian conurbation. This is another city, region and people with complicated history. The region has centuries old links to Germany and Czechia, and via post-WW2 migrations also to Lviv. There is a Silesian national identity and language (or dialect). 

This is a region blessed and cursed with rocks that can be dug out and sold, primarily black coal. A region known for catastrophic pollution and sinkholes caused by mining. A region where people were both working hard, getting paid well and living comfortably, compared to the rest of the country, and getting sick and dying early. This is a region from which young men were drafted to the German army and volunteered to fight in the Polish army, sometimes ending up fighting each other, like at Monte Cassino. This empty pedestal in the Freedom Square is a good symbol of that history:

The pedestal in the back is the remnant of the last monument here: Monument of Gratitude to the Soviet Army. Before that, there was a smaller monument to the Red Army, a monument to German soldiers, a monument to Silesian insurgents, and originally, a monument to two German emperors - see next photo.

Nowadays, it is a region known for industry, futuristic architecture and e-sport competitions. A fascinating place. 

Arriving by Train

Katowice is less than 3 hours away from Warsaw by train. The 1972 brutalist train station was reconstructed in 2013 (actually demolished and rebuilt, partially in the same style) with an addition of a huge shopping centre "Galeria Katowicka" and an underground parking for 1200 cars, so it's one of those "train station in a shopping mall" now. The old main train station buildings, except the original 1846 building, were preserved and are nearby. The brutalist-style main hall looks fine. The shopping centre looks futuristic from one side (corner of Stawowa and 3 Maja), bad from another (Słowackiego), and is a catastrophic, car-brain cluster-f*ck from the 3rd (Dworcowa). 

Sosnowiec train station falling apart.

Arriving in Katowice.

"Katowice dla odmiany" - "Katowice, for a change" - city PR campaign logo on the building.

There is a tree growing on the pink building. Like in Łódź, a lot of buildings are in need of repairs.

Pesa Elf of Silesian Railways.

Modernised EN57 of Polregio.

Czech loco pulling PKP Intercity carriages.

Pesa Dart

Inside the station hall.

Main entrance

Entrance via the shopping mall. This is the futuristic side.

The view from Plac Szewczyka, probably.

Hotel on the other side of Plac Szewczyka with a living facade.

The dystopian, ugly entrace to the garage under the train station / shopping mall.

The glass wall in the back is the train station / shopping mall.

Old railway station buildings.

The Good or Interesting Parts

A handy map of interesting things in a walking distance from the station.

I love that red and black livery. Some of these Pesa Twist trams have names. This one is called Gwarek. 

Rynek

The blue building is Skarbek - a 1975 department store. Before that, there was a building with a shop owned by parents of Ernst Borinski, who talks about it in the interview he gave in 1979:  "My parents had at this time what you might call a kind of department store of high quality, and we as children were always in there because we liked the people who were there and we could speak their language. The language was either German or Polish or Russian, some Yiddish was in between."

The “Fryderyk” tram.

The Radio Katowice banner says: good morning beautiful people.

The nicest part of Rynek: grass, trees, water, benches, free public toilets, tram stop.

“Przeciepnij się na koło” - switch to a bike.

Oldest bike in Poland (1925) was made in Katowice.

This must be a popular spot in summer.

This building, almost completely covered by the ad, is in a very poor condition.

When finished in 1970, this Le Corbusier style super-unit with 764 apartments was the biggest in Poland.

Three symbols of Katowice in one photo: Spodek, KTW, and Silesian Insurgents Memorial. 

KTW from another angle. The black shape is the conference centre.

Apart from the old city centre near the train station, Katowice looks like this for me: a lot of space for cars and blocks of flats.

The Bad Parts

The DTŚ urban motorway from Katowice to Gliwice, 31 km long, parallel to the A4 motorway running 2-6 km away. Construction started in 1979, finished in 2016, and extensions are planned. This motorway goes through city centers. In Gliwice it goes where a canal used to be. I hope some day people will put the canal back, like they did in Utrecht.

The canal in Gliwice, then, on a map, before construction of the motorway, and the same place now:

Source of the 3 images above: opencaching.pl

Source of the above 3 images: nowiny.gliwice.pl

The motorway in 2016. Source of the photo: Marcin Baranowski's YouTube channel. Similar to the rebuilding of Trasa Łazienkowska in Warsaw in 2022, I can’t believe there are people who still think urban motorways are a good idea. They bring noise and air pollution to city centres. They bring car traffic. They divide cities. They lower property values. They make cities worse for the residents. 

 

More Bad Parts

This could be a nice little river and park.

This looks like the backstreets of Łódź.

The Silesian Museum

Walking towards the Silesian Museum, which is located on the grounds of the former “Katowice" coal mine.

This may look good at night, when the neon is lit, but looks terrible during the day. The neon has the logo of "Katowice, for a change” campaign and the text “KATOWICE STREFA KULTURY”.

 

Entering the Silesian Museum - the fence with Silesian words, like “godać”, “szmaterlok”, “oberiba”, “wyzgierny”...

The following photos were taken in the museum:

This is what was here before the museum - coal mine Katowice.

“Kopalnia" means mine.

My uncle worked like that, I think. The men were shirtless because it was hot underground. The temperature increases between 2.5 and 3 degrees Celsius per 100 m. Katowice coal mine had people working at depths of 670m.

Silesia as part of Prussia and later Germany:

During industrial revolution Silesia experienced rapid industrialisation and population growth.

It’s interesting that there were people in Silesia who were getting rich very quickly in the 19th century, but they are completely unknown now, and there is not much left of their fortunes, as far as I can tell: 

Franciszek Ksawery Winckler or Franz von Winckler

Karol Godula or Karl Godulla. 

Progress: ban on employing children under 9.

The Szarlej zinc mine.

Creators of Giszowiec and Nikiszowiec workers’ settlements.

Giszowiec had free public transport too. :-)

Original plan of Giszowiec...

…and workers’ homes.

After World War 1:

Uprisings, plebiscite, Silesia divided between Germany and Poland.

Propaganda posters from the time of the 1921 plebiscite were written in German and Polish by both sides. This one, for Germany, shows how well workers are treated in Germany vs Poland: partnership vs subservience, celebration of work vs war, unemployment benefits vs crime. The campaign for the newly created Poland played on emotions: love of the country, removal of oppression, mother’s love. It also promised Silesia partial independence. Germany got more votes. The land was divided. The architecture split: more often traditional in the German part, and modernist in Poland. 

The Silesian Museum building during construction in 1939 in Katowice (Polish side). Demolished by Germans out of spite in 1941-1944.  

Hotel “Haus Oberschlesien” built in 1928 in Gliwice (German side). In 1945 it was burned down by Russians. It was rebuilt like this:

Gliwice also used to have trams - as you can see above. Not anymore - destroyed in 2009 by Zygmunt Frankiewicz. The above images come from: polska-org.pl

The 1921 plebiscite:

More about the 1921 plebiscite on wikipedia.

German plans for elevated railway connecting Zabrze, Gliwice, Bytom. 

World War 2:

Many Silesians who were forcibly drafted to the Wehrmacht deserted and joined Polish Armed Forces in the West.

Brother against brother

Communist Poland: 

Most of Silesia is now in Poland, Germans are expelled, Poles from the areas annexed by the Soviet Union move to new Poland, some stay in Silesia. For 3 years, after the death of Stalin, Katowice is officially called Stalinogród.

Makeshift shelter on the way west.

Lviv connection.

1956 repatriation from the Soviet Union.

Pollution:

A secret map of lead pollution in 1980. By 2013 the air was about 70 times cleaner in Katowice.

Growing and eating your own food in Silesia was bad for your health because of cadmium and lead contamination.

 

After martial law was introduced on 13 December 1981, the communist government dealt with striking workers by force: 9 people were killed in the Wujek mine in Katowice.

The little one - made in Silesia. My uncle from Silesia had one like that in 1980s, I had one exactly like that in 1990s.

“Frenzy According to Podkowiński” - a 1975 art piece by Andrzej Szczepaniec.