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One of the more important forms of educational activity was the school of knowledge, within which meetings were organised with scholars from various fields: law, history, geography, medicine, philosophy, ethics, knowledge of the contemporary world, and also problems concerning, among other things, matters connected with the life of Nowa Huta.

The following cycles were also run: "From the courtroom", "Get to know the world", "The Third World", "Ethics and morality".

The forms that gathered the regulars of the ZDK (the Lenin Steelworks House of Culture) included the clubs: space, press, film, radio and television, good book and theatre lovers'.

Especially worth stressing is the Good Book Club, whose programme provided for, and carried out, meetings with writers, poets and journalists. The following writers took part in the meetings: Karol Bunsch, Jerzy Putrament, Andrzej Frasik, Tadeusz Hołuj, Adam Włodek, Tadeusz Śliwiak and many others.

An important role was played by the Theatre Lovers' Club. In keeping with its name, meetings were held there with actors, directors and stage designers, in order to discuss with theatre lovers the performances they had seen. The theatre evenings whose main heroine was Aleksandra Mianowska were enormously popular. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that 140 theatre lovers belonged to the club. And the height of its achievements was that in the individual departments of the steelworks - like mushrooms after rain - circles of theatre lovers sprang up.

Please forgive me a personal digression, but I must confess that I was a great admirer of W.Hodys - and here I appeal for all innuendo to be ruled out. This special regard for the professor (also a lecturer at the State Higher School of Fine Arts) underlines his great intellect, his enormous gift for passing on knowledge about art, and at the same time his extraordinary ability to communicate. But also because, in a period of my education that was difficult for me, he admitted me to the Secondary School of Fine Arts.

The range of forms for shaping the aesthetic abilities of the inhabitants of Nowa Huta also included art exhibitions with the participation of members of the ZDK's Art Club, but above all a cycle of exhibitions in which dozens of professional artists took part.

Among the most outstanding of them was Marian Kruczek, whose work was also known abroad. This artist mainly practised quasi-sculpture, formed from metal objects and objects of other materials, whose composition was marked by an extraordinarily fanciful harmony and a surprising, whimsical form.

The creative traits of the individual artists, often diametrically different, made their exhibitions extremely attractive and proved their separate creative individuality.

Marian Garlicki, stage and costume designer of the Teatr Ludowy, experimented in his creative search by using allegorical shortcuts of his own.

Some of the artists preferred the concepts of abstractionism, based on form and on configurations of colour. This vision of painting was shared by: Ryszard Ledwos, Nikodem Pułka, Józef Dynda, Tadeusz Knaus, Andrzej Nowak, Anna Krasowska-Lutomska.

Others, in turn, produced work that leaned more towards realism.

Janusz Trzebiatowski, an extremely prolific artist, constantly evolved in his creative search. What has stuck most in my not very impressive memory are the landscapes painted in a grove, seductive in mood both in their warm, pastel colours and in their economy of form. Viewers, after seeing his exhibition, expressed their delight, and one of them did not fail to honour his achievements in painting with a song.

Not lacking in original references to the reality transferred to canvas, and providing viewers with interesting impressions, were the works of Irena Dębowska, Stanisława Bolesławska and Maria Grażyna Tokarczyk.

Among those artists who had enormous successes at home - and no smaller ones abroad - and who won artistic prizes was Józef Szajna. His works were exhibited in Paris, Brussels, Italy, Zurich, Japan, Sweden, Nuremberg and Budapest. The countries and cities listed are the best review of the value of this artist's creative output. It should not be forgotten that he was the stage designer of the Teatr Ludowy. And once settled permanently in Warsaw he created his own theatre, in which he carried out his own vision of stage design and directing.

To present the next artists counted among the leaders in this community, I will allow myself to use the review by Maciej Gutkowski which appeared in Dziennik Polski:

.."Eugeniusz Mucha creates paintings of a distinctly individual beauty. The world he creates comes close to satire. It is at the same time a poetic and rather bitter tale about reality.."

Excellent in colour, and not without a message stronger than merely decorative, are the compositions of Mrs Józefa Sobór-Kruczek.

In conclusion of these sections devoted to the exceptionally vigorous creative community that the artists of Nowa Huta are, one should highlight the fact that over ten years 442 exhibitions were organised in all the institutions of the ZDK, visited by about a million people, and in particular stress the priceless initiative of organising the cycle of exhibitions called "Artists of Nowa Huta".

One of the forms of educational activity was foreign language courses for children and adults, a kind of language school. During a season over 500 people were learning languages.

I cannot fail to recall here that libraries also existed in all the institutions subordinate to the ZDK. In the workers' hostels, in turn, six library points were run. More than that: in most of the production departments there were library points where the stock was exchanged regularly and supplied with newly published books. The library, within the Good Book Club, organised meetings with writers, journalists and so on.

In the programme of the ZDK library an important form was the literary category under the heading "Writers and Nowa Huta". That cycle was inaugurated by a one-poem tournament. The tournament was conceived for young adepts of poetry who had not yet published their poems, and besides, the poems had to be connected in subject with Nowa Huta. The event was conducted by the vice-chairman of the Young Writers' Circle at the Polish Students' Association (ZSP) - Jerzy Michał Czarnecki. The role of the jury was performed by the large - mostly young - audience. In a secret ballot the palm of victory and the cash prize were awarded to Adam Kawa for the poem entitled "Stwierdzenie liryczne".

It is well known that the winner of that tournament is today one of the leading poets of the Kraków milieu, but he is still an inhabitant of Nowa Huta.

Second place went to Marek Sarnecki for the poem entitled "O Nowej to Hucie - z cyklu Kraków". And today, carrying out the mission of a doctor, may he not have lost the soul of a poet. Third place was given to a worker of the HiL steel plant - Jan Kaletka. The following meetings of that cycle were attended by writers who devoted part of their literary work to the subject of Nowa Huta. They included such writers as: Marian Brandys, Jan Kurczab, Ryszard Kłyś, Adam Ważyk, Marek Sarnecki.

The stanzas of the last-named's poem ran as follows: .. "

The Good Book Club, within its meetings with writers, was host to, among others: Karol Bunsch, Wisława Szymborska, Julian Kawalec.

The expert promotion of good books, the shaping of the reader's proper taste and the broadly understood educational campaign on the plane of the Good Book Club were mainly in the hands of the head and founder of the library, Maria Buttyter. And since the scope of work in the library was enormous, their boss was actively supported by - Krystyna Ciastoń and Maria Dziekan.

In the cultural and educational activity of the ZDK an unprecedented undertaking was the Cultural Olympiads, in which, as time went by, almost all the departments of the HiL steelworks took part.

With each successive season more and more departments declared their wish to take part in this event. The Olympiad was an exceptional locomotive for enlivening cultural life among the steelworks' crew. And this found expression in such contests as: the education and reading contest, the contest for popularising art, for the culture of the workplace, for the wall newspaper. A lively response in the field of artistic production was aroused by the contests in search of new talents: in art, music, recitation and singing.

It is hard not to mention that the programme of the Cultural Olympiads also provided for tourist trips for the steelworks' crew, which had not only sightseeing aims but also visits to museums of various types and historic buildings - not excluding religious ones.

During those trips quizzes and contests were organised, and the winners received book prizes. That educational tourism was effectively planned and actively carried out by Zbigniew Czołowski, head of the Cultural and Educational Committee of the Works Council of the HiL steelworks.

In the fourth Olympiad in succession its programme was enriched with a film contest and a photography contest. The steelworks' Olympiad was followed by a cultural olympiad of the workers' hostels, which of course first of all affected the aesthetic appearance of the hostels, and in the longer run broadened the residents' interest in those competitions which were included in the programme of the steelworks' Cultural Olympiad.

The events run by the ZDK were concentrated mainly in the café, where there was a stage, in the theatre hall and in the HiL sports and entertainment hall.

On these stages both its own groups and foreign and Polish ones appeared. Among the foreign groups, special mention is due to: Marino Marini from Italy, song and dance ensembles from Bulgaria, Hungary and Vietnam, a group from Mexico, the revue "Paris on Ice", groups from the Soviet Union, the vocal and music group "Brasiliana" and a number of others.

The performances of "Zgaduj Zgadula" were enormously popular. A number of performances took place with artists of the Kraków stages, and also of the Philharmonic. Fashion shows were presented. Nor did it do without listening to poetry recitals and watching the programmes of the cabaret "Jama Michalika".

In 1964 the Chief Technical Organisation (NOT) came under the patronage of the ZDK. In its club rooms it gathered mainly engineers, forming a community of people who did not require any special educational efforts. In this state of affairs the programme was defined mainly by artistic events, and since the club's events were entrusted to my humble self, for its inauguration I proposed an evening of songs about Nowa Huta.

Sparing myself a detailed discussion of further events, I will limit myself to the general thesis that the multitude of artistic formations at the ZDK's disposal, and the possibility of engaging artists from outside, was an offer which absolutely and fully satisfied the expectations of that community. And this both in terms of the attractiveness of the events and of their artistic level. So in the longer run it was from this angle that the programme concept in the NOT club was carried out.

And one could, at the end of this list of events organised by the ZDK and of the most varied formations, brandish impressive statistics that might cause great astonishment, but the essence of this description does not lie in them.

In this wide field of artistic events Maria Kwiecień reigned supreme: an exceptional talent for organisation, an accurate programme concept for every event, extraordinary dynamism, initiative and precision in every element that decides whether an event is successful in every respect.

The sections showing the sphere of cultural and educational activity do not take in the full range of artistic groups that existed and of educational forms carried out in Nowa Huta. For they are based mainly on the institutions allied with the HiL House of Culture. Hence the decision that it was necessary to show this plane of cultural activity, which contains symptomatic features.

The main field of the clearest and most significant manifestations of cultural life was in the centre of Nowa Huta. Yet one cannot omit the fact that on its outskirts a whole series of clubs and common rooms could be observed, and in Łęg even a working House of Culture - the scale of its programme and its quality went far beyond the notion of an outlying institution. It was there that the first cabarets were created, about which - in this material - something was written earlier. There too artistic groups existed, and an art club run by competent instructors: Alicja Ptak, Maria....

It is a truism to mention the well-developed educational work, and also the functioning of the library.

That the House of Culture had a dynamic influence on the community of people living in the blocks and employed at the nearby works, and gathered young people in various hobby sections and artistic groups, it owed to the person who managed this institution ably and effectively - Halina Borek.

What also deserves special emphasis is that, for example, the inhabitants of the village of Łęg, who at that time still worked on the land, were proud of having a common room where mainly young people gathered, taking part in the choir and the dance group. I had the pleasure of leading both groups together with Andrzej Dutkiewicz. And it should be added that these were not the only forms of cultural life which young people, and adults too - after work on the land - willingly made use of in that common room. The cultural activity of both clubs and common rooms in the town and on its outskirts was subsidised by the Culture Department of the District National Council (DRN).

Moving gradually towards the final conclusions of the history of the development of Culture and Education in Nowa Huta, the first thing that irresistibly comes to mind is - turned into something of a travesty - the already famous announcement of Jerzy Owsiak: "oj będzie się działo" ("oh, things are going to happen") - changed into "oj jak wiele się działo" ("oh, how much did happen").

The wide spectrum of cultural and educational activity, many-sided in terms of subject - please believe me that we are not dealing here with a glorification of facts - grounded solely in the realities of the time and drawn largely from my own experience, though not without considerable support from source materials, has the features of an authentic document.

An enormous crowd of people not only did not turn away from the new community of Nowa Huta, but actually took on the almost heroic effort of giving it a civilised shape and, subsequently, culture-creating development. Today a good number of them stand on a pedestal as well-known and recognised leading figures in scientific and artistic circles. That is why they have fully deserved to be paid honour and to be given extraordinary gratitude and recognition on behalf of the inhabitants of (today a district of) Kraków. And here it is also worth noting that they won their first spurs on the ground of Nowa Huta as it came into being.

This is not merely an attempt to present the events that occurred in the sphere of culture and education in Nowa Huta, but a reliable picture of what was achieved in that field, with a number of references drawn from first-hand experience and from trends of various kinds that confirm the authenticity of the records. And the self-expression of that information is certainly more telling and convincing - so I hope - than a neatly worded account of events deprived of the author's subjectivity, properly understood.

Analysing myself, I wonder whether my wandering through absolutely all the institutions under the ZDK's sign is a good or a bad omen? - I cannot answer that question unequivocally. Only this reflection comes to mind: thanks to that exploration of all the ZDK's institutions, the material telling of the accomplishments and achievements in culture and education in Nowa Huta is surely more searching and more adequate than one that would have been written solely on the basis of source materials, which are - unfortunately not always - complete and entirely accurate.

A retrospective of the history of the amateur artistic movement and the multitude of activities in spreading cultural and educational forms, shown over a wide horizon of time and substance, is undoubtedly an enormous projection which may arouse positive reflections even among the greatest sceptics, not to mention the fierce opponents of the Nowa Huta community.

Recalling the saying - perhaps a little banal today - "there are no effects without a cause", I found myself on a trail leading to the threads in which that turn of thought will explain the complexity of its meaning.

Right at the foot of the beginnings of the development of the Nowa Huta population, the level of its mentality, still too flat and perhaps somewhat dimmed, began gradually to climb towards the pedestals qualifying it for the name of inhabitants of a district of Kraków.

I am fully convinced that the extraordinary blessing of the deep sociological and cultural changes that fell to the Nowa Huta community is - to an overwhelming degree - the merit of the inhabitants themselves of this new town, then developing so impressively.

The enormous willpower in carrying out those transformations should also be seen in the fact that the town - and Nowa Huta was given that name at the very point of its birth - became a culture-creating stimulator, widened horizons of seeing the world and created the possibility of deciphering more quickly the phenomena occurring in it. It raised cultural standards in ways of behaving and living, and caused its inhabitants to undergo effectively the processes of ennobling their personal status and of psycho-sociological development.

In preparing this material I tried, at least to some extent, to verify the views, notions, judgements and opinions about the then new, often lost community of Nowa Huta - especially in the fifties and sixties, and with particular intensity at the end of the forties - on whom calumnies rained down, so often deeply hurtful and unjust.

I assume that this once misty prism of seeing the new arrivals will, from today's perspective, perhaps be clearer, fairer, and maybe even kindly.

If that happens, then apart from a surge of a deep sense of relief shared by the majority of Nowa Huta people, myself included, there will remain for me only to express gratitude to the devoted protagonist - of my intentions, strivings, desires and even dreams - the originator of this mad project and the creator of its graphic design - Ryszard Szczudłowski.