Warsaw [antikvár]

JEdward Hartwig has taken upon himself the ambitious task of portraying the Warsaw of the present day. Photographs by this outstanding artist in his craft address the onlooker in their own language; they are accomplished works of art in themselves and could speak without any commentary. However, the particular character of the city being portrayed challenges one to venture a few words on the city itself for its own sake-a venture which might be further excused upon the consideration that no book of photographs can present the city in its entire length and breadth and no photographer could possibly show the past of the city or direct his camera lens towards its future. Warsaw, a veritable wonder of a city, is the world's only capital which at a definite moment of its history ceased to exist in the most dramatic circumstances, lost most of its buildings and its entire population, to re-emerge in a short time in defiance of all down-to-earth prognostications, to assume a new shape, yet without losing its historical appearance, and without giving up its continuity with the past. It is a city whose historic buildings were destroyed systematically and erased almost completely and which-for all that-possesses not only individual buildings but alsó collections of monuments that thrill one with the spirit of the history of the city and the people. Before this last-final, it would have seemed-disaster feli, Warsaw had faced similar calamities on more than one occasion, although on a smaller scale as the city itself was smaller. This time, however, the work of destruction wrought as a result of the Second World War appeared to be final. No sooner, however, had the enemy retreated than the frost-bound desert of the ruined city was penetrated by the first people returning to their city on the heels of the marching columns of the Soviet and Polish armies. These early home-comers, these homeless paupers were the people who had tacitly made a resolution that might have seemed senseless then: to reconstruct Warsaw on the very site it had occupied before.