Survey of Polish war losses to architectural heritage (1940–1950)

Abstract

The paper focuses on the survey of World War II losses suffered by Poland to its architectural heritage conducted by Polish authorities already during the war (by the Polish governmentin-exile) and immediately after the war (by the communist government of Poland). The knowledge of the extent of losses suffered by historic buildings was a significant source of information for the makers of the material heritage preservation policy. However, it also
served the state’s propagandist and economic purposes. In my research on cultural heritage surveys, the key problem is the very idea of a ‘loss’ in the context of historic architecture. The analysis of the available archival material testifies that the term ‘loss’ at that time signified different cases of material damage to historic buildings (complete or partial destruction, rebuilding, change of function). The methodology applied to the surveying directly affected its final outcome and as a result, the general picture (including scale) of the destruction of historic architecture. The methodology also reflected the understanding
of the value of historic architecture at the time as well as the ambivalence of the very idea of ‘historicity’ and ‘architectural monuments.’ The main problem of the paper is thus not the war losses themselves, but the means and results of their official recording.