Warsaw in the TV series the House
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The TV series “The House” was filmed between 1980 and 2000 and covers the development of Warsaw from 1945 to 1980 in 25 episodes of up to one and a half hours each. It is a series that follows the residents of Warsaw in a residential building from their return to the war-torn city, through reconstruction, faith in communism and disillusionment.
The series begins in 1945, and at the start of the series we see how the residents slowly return to their pre-war home, which they set about renovating themselves. The films from the destroyed city is overwhelming and you feel present in the ruined Warsaw, where rubble is everywhere. You feel the awareness that there’s nothing to do but simply put it all back together again. The walls are left as an empty shell, and gradually all the residents of the house appear and resume life from their old home. The war against the Germans is not yet over, but you follow the battles between the communist resistance movement supported by the Red Army and the nationalist resistance movement. People survive however they can. The currency is tobacco, home-brewed vodka or a bowl of soup.
In the midst of the chaos, the interim government decides to rebuild the city, nationalising all property and start rebuilding a civil administration in the ruins. The fight is on against speculation, including people buying too much flour at once. The water taps start working, the first tram line gets underway. The residents in the House live in their old apartments, but the housing shortage is huge and the bureaucracy organises housing commissions that fill the apartments with strangers. People go to the cinema for weekly soap operas to hear the news and get a political education.
In 1946, the government holds a referendum on the foundations of the future Poland – 3xYES say the banners, and the communists get their fake yes to the changes. Meanwhile, the dead are being dug out of the ruins.
19 January 1947 sees the first rigged parliamentary elections, which, combined with pressure on other parties, results in a coalition government with the communists holding the key ministries. The mood of the population is divided, and many feel that everything is predetermined from Moscow. Cultural life and music begin again, but many want to head west. But the most important and overriding thing is still demolishing ruins and building houses.
Over the next few episodes, we see the enthusiasm for the new socialist society, the square-jawed communist commissars and returning members of the bourgeois resistance movement who dream of a free Poland without Russian domination. Without friendships, no one makes it, everyone needs recommendations, many want to hide something dark in their past. But you feel the belief that anything is possible.
Tuberculosis ravages the devastated city and also comes into close contact with the residents of the House. Electricity still hasn’t arrived in the villages, but in Warsaw they are building major thoroughfares for the coming traffic with the help of hand and shovels.
In 1949, the first part of the Mariensztat fairytale town was completed, an area just below the Castle Square, reminiscent of the small trading towns of the Renaissance and giving the capital a romantic flavour. The first Polish car – the luxury vehicle Warsaw – rolls out of the factory gates in 1951. You’d almost think things are getting back to normal. If you have a good job, you can buy a new bike. But despite the progress, there is still a shortage of everything, perhaps first and foremost a place to live. Communism may be godless, but religious (Catholic) life has a huge influence in daily life. But even if religion is allowed, the communist grip on the population is concrete. You don’t joke about socialism if you don’t want to be kicked out of your job or studies. The new Poland must be taken seriously.
Above: The luxury car Warszawa
Public declarations of commitment to work hard and improve on set goals are a natural part of the working environment. Meanwhile, a trowel is handed out to every able-bodied citizen, regardless of their masonry skills. Things are moving forward, but perhaps not with quite the qualities you’d hoped for.
In 1953, Stalin dies and in the House we follow the residents’ problems, which include cohabitation, lack of enthusiasm and lack of understanding when their children go into the service of the state (or communism). In the meantime, street names are being transformed into names that remind citizens of the socialist society. And the socialist society registers everything it can about its citizens, including who gets letters from abroad. It’s the end of Stalinism – censorship erases all bad thoughts and people disappear into the darkness if they have dangerous thoughts.
Stalinism slowly disappears, society begins to normalise. Many have travelled to the newly acquired areas in the West – Wroclaw and Szczecin. The Oder River is the new border. The first strikes of the workers’ paradise appear and spread to Warsaw. The city is apparently also becoming more international, because suddenly you see a black man on the streets of the capital and tourists from all over the world come in large groups to admire the socialist marvel.’ But… the broken souls from the war have not been healed.
Officially, in 1956, amnesty is granted for crimes against the Red Army in connection with WWII. Others are rehabilitated after years of torture and humiliation. But the informers are still having a great time, and no one knows who is informing on whom; doubts about the system are beginning to creep in among some of those who believe or believed in a new and just society. At the same time, society begins to appear more free. After the years of terror, poets can write poetry and it is possible to describe a lot of things that were previously impossible to talk about. The justice system proves that it is functional, humane and somewhat independent when a former concentration camp prisoner is given a suspended sentence of two years in prison for killing a former kapo a few years earlier.
In Poznan, strikes and riots are crushed by the army and telephone connections to Warsaw are cut off. But the industrial workers in Warsaw are showing that they too have had enough. The honeymoon period of socialism is over – and now it’s all about grabbing as much as possible for yourself. Corruption and privilege become almost official. Meanwhile, faith in Jesus and the church is strong in most people.
The phone exists, but only the luckiest and most influential people get to install such a modern marvel. If it has to be fast, it’s still done by telegram. The protagonist of the series brings his elderly mum from the countryside to Warsaw after the death of his father. In the cities there are buses, trams and a few cars, in the countryside there are only horse-drawn carriages and a few tractors. Moving from a smallholding to the big city isn’t easy.
The city is evolving and importing business models from Western Europe. In 1962, the first supermarket in Warsaw opened in a modernist building and citizens queued up to shop this way.
Above Supersam
Soon after, the first TVs go on sale, and some residents in the House have the opportunity to buy one and invite their neighbours to TV nights. People dance, laugh at the authorities, and some try their hand at political messaging. The rules are relaxed, but censorship remains vigilant and television becomes a popular propaganda machine. Cars and lorries are gaining ground, but horse-drawn carriages still play a crucial role. Marriages fail, but few break up, and when they do, it’s with the help of lawyers. Once you’re spliced together, it’s difficult and almost unthinkable to break ties. But it happens anyway.
It’s the mid-1960s. It’s clear that wealth is increasing, but everything is still modest by today’s standards. If you want to get ahead in life, it helps to have influential family or friends. Football plays an increasingly important role and horse racing is popular just outside the city centre. Worries about daily life and pregnancies are not conducive to sex drive. But you can find love – or more likely a partner – through adverts. Warsaw’s main railway station still looks like a stepping stone.
The old caretaker is dead. He has been the unifying force in the House, just as caretakers were everywhere and had been for over a hundred years. They were the ones who kept track of everything, and there were no changes.
However, the new caretaker is a more primitive type, a product of the communist system. He terrorises the residents of the house. However, complaining doesn’t help, the caretaker is the representative of the system – just like under the Russians a hundred years earlier.
The scarcity of goods is starting to be felt, and only privileges provide slightly better conditions. The students are openly protesting and demanding freedom and democracy. The authorities hit back hard and crack down on the protests. The people respond with song, culture and socialising. Meanwhile, the caretaker makes moonshine vodka.
In the spring of 1969, the protesting students are conscripted into the army and expelled from the universities. We also see how, after the 1968 uprising, Jews are scapegoated and leave Poland in huge numbers.
Meanwhile, the new caretaker meddles in everything and is an expert in everything. But his experiments in craftsmanship usually end in disaster. His motto is: for me it (the task) is a small beer before breakfast. Accidents pour down on the House, but one event everyone wants to see is the Americans’ Apollo 11 rocket landing on the moon.
The crisis is crushing, or you’ve just reached a point where you’re looking for normality in your life. Old heirlooms are sold to make ends meet. The longing for pre-war Poland becomes apparent. Young people expect a different life and they watch Apollo 11 land. The world has changed.
Alienation from the system becomes increasingly apparent, and in The House, a couple is divorced after one of them joins the communist party. Many people want to go to the West, but it’s not that easy to leave Poland. Others escape the monotonous life in the countryside to find excitement and true love in Warsaw – it’s a little easier than coming to the West, although… wild love doesn’t always work out.
In December 1970, a major strike breaks out in Gdansk. The military surrounds the shipyard, shooting at the strikers and beating the lucky ones with gags. The news comes through the radio to Warsaw, but a filmmaker from the House happens to be in town filming the brutality. Everything is in turmoil. Former miner Gierek takes over as communist leader and talks down the situation.
Efficiency requirements override safety requirements. The new party chairman demands streamlining and that Poland develops into an export country. It creates accidents and conflicts.
These are new times. One of the residents of the House opens a privately owned automatic car wash and the priest comes to bless it with holy water. Big state-owned companies are introducing marketing, and a new carefree generation is growing up that doesn’t harbour the dark side of war. The joy of life is instantaneous.
Meanwhile, workers from the strike in Gdansk are struggling to document the military’s abuses for all the world to see. It’s a time when large rolls of film have to be smuggled past vigilant customs officers at the airport. And when it is discovered that the footage has travelled to the West, the security services spring into action. As in past centuries, caretakers continue their role as informants when approached by the state. And when state power isn’t there, he continues his hopeless work as a can-do and house tyrant.
Alongside the joy of life, criminal gangs are also emerging, organising betting and sporting events. You don’t want to mess with them.
Even if censorship is eased, it still exists. The healthcare system works, but doesn’t live up to Western standards. The atmosphere is boiling and many in Warsaw hate communism. In 1976, price increases led to labour unrest in several Polish cities, including Ursus, then a suburb of Warsaw. As one of the residents of the House says: I can forgive them the price increases on sugar, because I have diabetes. But anyone who raises the prices of vodka and sausages in Poland is suicidal.
Meanwhile, an emigrant Pole returns to Poland from the West, but only to pick up a wife and look across the Ukrainian border to the lost land.
The shops are running low on stock, and the caretaker starts trading meat delivered from the countryside from his flat. The church and respect for the priests remains unchanged, but a group of young people start attending Indian meditation classes. Others go dancing. The regime’s police forces fight against graffiti and ridicule.
Every week, the police get some meat from the caretaker so as not to interfere with the trade, and the caretaker starts a relationship with the woman from the countryside, who brings the meat.
Some of the House’s residents buy elegant second-hand Biedermeier-style furniture, others hold secret meetings and talk about the curses of the system. The security services take action and arrest around 30 people in a private apartment, where they immediately pretend they are singing songs. Chairs are cut up and the apartment is ransacked in search of compromising material.
Life in the house goes on. The caretaker is still the one everyone deals with, and he’s still a hopeless fumbler who’s always trying to grab a little extra. One of the residents gets a new kidney, but it takes connections to get that kind of treatment. And then the car factory starts producing a new marvel, a Polonez, which will deliver a new class of middle-class cars to the Poles.
Polonez – the car for the middle class.
The mood is tense in Poland. Young people race in stolen cars and many of the older ones support change and striking workers. The security service fights back, tapping phones. One of the house’s residents is an architect and gets the opportunity to work in Italy. He accepts that offer.
It’s been 35 years since World War II came to an end. We have seen how the residents of the Warsaw house have struggled to return to normality, we have witnessed the political contradictions and we have seen the contradictions between generations. The last 10 years have been characterised by strikes, workers’ resistance against the labour government. And the government’s futile struggle to balance the economy. The series ends in 1980 with the legalisation of the free trade union Solidarity, where society goes crazy in a rush for freedom.
DOM (The House) series is available on DVD with English subtitles. As mentioned, the series consists of 25 episodes and is sold in 2 boxes with 12-13 episodes in each. It can also be watched online in Polish without subtitles on TVP. Click here to buy it with subtitles at Empik.
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