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 were 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.

“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.