Last 100 years of Silesia. International ring

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Last 100 years of Silesia.International ring

• Basic information about Silesia area.

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Silesia

• Silesia is a historical region in central Europe.
  Most of it is now within the borders of Poland,
  with small parts in the Czech Republic and
  Germany. Silesia is located along the upper and
  middle Oder River, upper Vistula River, and along
  the Sudetes, Carpathian (Silesian Beskids)
  mountain range. The largest cities of Silesia are
  Wroclaw and Katowice.

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Interwar period

• After the referendum, there were three Silesian
  Insurrections instigated by Polish inhabitants of
  the area, as a result of which the League of
  Nations decided that the province should be split
  again and that the eastern-most Upper Silesian
  areas, even though a majority there had voted to
  remain inside Germany, should become an
  autonomous area within Poland organised as the
  Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship (Autonomiczne
  Wojewodztwo Slaskie) and with Silesian Parliament
  as a constituency and Silesian Voivodship Council
  as the executive body. One of the central
  political figures that stirred these changes was
  Wojciech Korfanty.

• Military band walks under the sign made by Polish
  people of Karwina during the 1938 annexation of
  Zaolzie by Poland. The sign reads "We've been
  waiting for you 600 years".

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Preserving trade union independence
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Preserving trade union independence Part 1

• The workers have lost their leader wrote
  Magdalena Ostrowska in the daily Trybuna after
  the September 2005 death of Daniel Podrzycki,
  president of the free trade union Sierpien
  80 and candidate for the presidency of the
  Republic under the banner of the Polish Party of
  Labour (PPP), set up by this union.

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Preserving trade union independence Part 2

• It all began with the establishment of the state
  of emergency on December 13, 1981. Podrzycki,
  then a high school student, by instinct of
  solidarity with the workers organized in the
  trade union Solidarnosc had attempted - without
  success - to go to the Huta Katowice steelworks,
  occupied by workers and encircled by the army and
  police.

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Confusions, errors, misunderstandings

• In January 2000 Sierpien 80 took part alongside
  Samoobrona, the Front Polski and general
  Tadeusz Wilecki in the forum aimed at the
  creation of a national-popular Bloc for the
  elections.
• This Bloc was ephemeral - the fruit of confusion
  if only from the fact that Wilecki had been a
  declared partisan of general Pinochet whereas the
  leaders of Sierpien 80 had no doubt that, as
  Podrzycki wrote, Pinochet was a brown general,
  acting in the interest of foreign capital, at the
  initiative of the right, whereas president
  Salvador Allende was overthrown by the military
  junta of Augusto Pinochet because he had opposed
  the interests of the free market of the US
  copper mega-holding, ITT.

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Spodek

• Spodek (saucer in Polish) is a multipurpose arena
  complex in Katowice, Poland, opened in 1971 in
  Korfantego street. Aside from the main dome, the
  complex includes a gym, an ice rink, a hotel and
  three large car parks. It is the largest indoor
  venue of its kind in Poland. It hosts many
  important cultural and business events. Music
  concerts are especially common non-sport events.
• The idea of building a large venue originated in
  1955, while Katowice was temporarily renamed
  Stalinogród. A contest was held to select the
  best design. Initially, it was to be constructed
  on the outskirts of town, but the Voivodeship
  National Council decided it should be built near
  the city center.

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Lyndon LaRouche as ...

• At the end of the 1990s numerous anti-neoliberal
  economic analyses appeared in Kurier Zwiazkowy,
  along with proposals of economic alternatives and
  other materials issued by the Schiller Institute.
  This Institute belongs to the political current
  led by Lyndon LaRouche. In 1973 LaRouche
  transformed his US organization from a left
  grouping to a far right organization which
  practiced physical terror against Communists and
  Trotskyists and their assemblies, meetings and
  bookshops.

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Victorious steel strike

• The strike in the steel works, whose CEO was then
  Emil Wasacz, ex-president of Solidarnosc in the
  company and former activist in the Catholic
  movement Oasis, was particularly remarkable.
  Because of the aggressive policy of wage
  reduction implemented by Wasacz since 1991, the
  steelworks had the lowest wages in its branch and
  an absurd pay scale which led to those who had
  the highest wages winning the biggest increases.

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Silesia in the Modern World

• Silesia became part of the German Empire within
  the unification of Germany (1871). There was
  considerable industrialization in Upper Silesia,
  and many people moved there. A majority of the
  population was Polish-speaking and Roman
  Catholic, and in whole Silesia Polish-speakers
  were estimated to more than 30, concentrated in
  regions of Upper Silesia and Opole.
• After Germany's and Austria's defeat in World War
  I the Austrian parts of Silesia were divided
  between Poland and Czechoslovakia. In the Treaty
  of Versailles it was decided that the population
  of Upper Silesia should hold a plebiscite in
  order to determine the future of the province.
  This plebiscite was held in 1921 and organised by
  the League of Nations. The outcome of the
  referendum was 706,000 votes for Germany, and
  479,000 for Poland. However, in the southeastern
  areas which were the backbone of economy and
  industry, there was a strong majority for Poland.
  Nonetheless Upper Silesia remained German.
  Silesia was then reorganised within the two
  Prussian provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia.

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Step by step

• After the referendum, there were three Silesian
  Insurrections, and as a result of them the League
  of Nations decided that the province should be
  split and areas that voted for Poland should
  become autonomous Silesian Voivodship
  (Wojewodztwo Slaskie), as part of Poland.
• Germany took possession of these parts of Silesia
  again in 1939, when the attack on Poland marked
  the begin of the Second World War. The Silesian
  Poles were killed or deported, and German
  settlers were brought to their homes subsequent
  to these atrocities.
• In 1945 all of Silesia was occupied by Soviet
  troops, by then a large proportion of German
  population had fled Silesia. The treaty between
  the USSR, Great Britain, France, and the United
  States assigned the major part of Silesia east of
  the rivers Oder (Odra) and Neisse (Nysa) to
  Poland. Most of the Silesian Germans were
  forcibly expelled from the lands east of the
  Oder-Neisse line. A little part of Silesia
  surrounding the city of G?litz remained German
  (now part of the Federal State of Saxony).
• The industry of Silesia was afterwards rebuilt,
  the region was populated by Poles from other
  areas (mostly by Poles who were themselves
  expelled from lands annexed by the Soviet Union).
  Today more than 20 of the entire population of
  Poland live in Silesia.

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Quick Facts

• The Opole and Silesian Voivodships are called
  Upper Silesia. The small portion in the Czech
  Republic known as Czech Silesia is joined with
  the northern part of Moravia and forms the
  Moravian-Silesian Region of that country, while
  the remainder forms a small part of the Olomouc
  Region.
• Politically, almost all of Silesia is divided
  between Poland and the Czech Republic. The Polish
  portion comprises most of the former Prussian
  provinces of Upper Silesia and Lower Silesia,
  both of which were transferred to Polish
  administration at the Potsdam Conference of 1945
  the Polish portion ... includes those parts of
  Upper Silesia that were ceded by Germany to
  Poland after World War I and part of the former
  Austrian principality of Teschen. A second, much
  smaller part of Silesia belonged to
  Czechoslovakia since 1918, and became part of the
  Czech Republic with the dissolution of
  Czechoslovakia in 1993.

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Quick Facts Part 2

• Silesia is a Central European country partitioned
  between three states Poland, the Czech Republic
  and Germany. It consists of two historical
  regions Lower and Upper Silesia. Its area is
  44.992sq.km (Lower Silesia - 26.592 sq.km. Upper
  Silesia - 18.400 sq.km).It borders Saxony and
  Brandenburg (Germany), Wielkopolska and
  Malopolska (Poland), Moravia and Bohemia (the
  Czech Republic) and Slovakia.
• Silesia is a historical region in central Europe.
  Most of it is now within the borders of Poland,
  with small parts in the Czech Republic. Silesia
  is located along the upper and middle Oder River
  (Odra) and along the Sudetes mountain range. In
  the local Silesian language or dialect, the
  region is called Slonsk or Slunsk. The largest
  city of Silesia is Wroclaw.

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Katowice
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Silesia City Centerone of the biggest in Poland
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The End

• We hope that You will enjoy Your time, here in
  Silesia.