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Silesia, Poland

Franco Zecchin

The main pillar of communism ideology was the cult of the socialist progress in the form of heavy industry, heavy machines and big chimneys. Nature as not been respected, and no care as been taken in the planning of landscapes (if such planning ever existed). Also natural resources have been treated as goods which will never run out. Such huge factories and mines have overwhelmed the environment with pollutants. And the regime's need for monuments and spectacular shows has been responsible for placing the most polluting factories in the most densely populated areas and towns. Aie emissions per unit produced by industry are significantly higher than in Western Europe. Silesia has also concentrete on developing heavy industry which generates atmospheric pollution on a large scale. The population of this area lives tucked between the mines and mills, one town scarcely distinguishable from the next, along snaking roads choked with heavy truck traffic. The result is dead and dying forests, high infant mortality and lower (due to environmental factors) life expectancy than in other European countries. In addition, hard physical work, stressful urban conditions, uncomfortable overcrowded buses and trains and other socio-economic factors such as poverty, diet, smoking, alcohol and drug abuse make people emotionally explosive, overreactive and aggressive. No one is able to stop the ecological disaster. Officially, the scientists have said that it is difficult to blame the environment for all medical problems. But however limited the precise scientific links between environment and health are, many physicians and scientists in Katowice are convinced that pollution has been killing adults and maiming children. Environmental problems are very low down on the list of priorities, far below material considerations. This low level of ecological consciousness is also the result of years spent cynically ignoring human needs and rigths, including the right to a clean and healthy environment. Environmental policy requires long-term planning, a totally different "philosophy". Environmental security is part of national security, and of good living condition for citizens, and it has international implications as well. About one-fourth of the area's population is under the age of twenty. It is these children who are now inheriting the earth of the province of Katowice. It is a frightening legacy. (I had spent 4 months photographing Silesia, from September 1990 to May 1991. I visited hospitals, clinics, rehabilitation centres, industrial plants, mines, public wastes, schools, worker houses, prisons, stadiums, churches, cemeteries. I wandered in the little towns of the district through the people, into beer bars, street markets, public transports. I worked in close contact with physicians, therapists, epidemiologists and medical researchers, policemen and criminologists, priests, teachers, ethnographers, administrators of cities and district. I collected and connected data and statistics from different scientific and official sources to support my pictures with the most serious documentation.)



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