City of forgiveness – Wrocław as a space for dialogue and non-religious reconciliation
Michał KŁOSOWSKI
‘There are few places in Poland where history calls so strongly for remembrance and at the same time, for reconciliation. Wrocław, a city where cultures, religions and nations converge, has learnt over the decades to raise people, not walls, from the ruins – even amid the lingering shadows of the past,’ writes Michał KŁOSOWSKI.
.‘What is reconciliation, Uncle?’ my nearly ten-year-old godson asked me the other day. How can I explain that this is more complex than a simple apology and a request for forgiveness from one party and an open yet firm attitude from the other? Rather, it’s naming things as they are, a frank accounting of every sin, to achieve true cleansing. Such reconciliation hurts, but it is the only kind that truly leads to forgiveness. Perhaps pain isn’t always a bad thing.
Above all, however, reconciliation is not a slogan from a religion textbook or a grand political gesture. It is a process that involves a series of specific steps. It’s also a daily decision to remember, as forgetting is impossible, and yet refrain from revenge. A choice to acknowledge the pain and dress the wound, careful not to let it fester and spread to others. In this sense, Wrocław may understand reconciliation better than any other city in Poland.
A Multi-layered city
.The spiritual history of Wrocław did not begin in 1945. For centuries, the city was a melting pot of German, Czech and Polish religious, philosophical and artistic thought. Before the war, Breslau was one of the most important centres of German culture and the home to figures such as Edith Stein – a philosopher, Jewish convert to Catholicism and Discalced Carmelite nun who was murdered in Auschwitz and later canonised as a Catholic saint and patron of Europe.
Her life in many ways mirrors the city’s history, marked by identity struggles and dramatic turns, ultimately directed towards transcendence. Her choices always propelled her forward. Husserl’s student and Heidegger’s philosophical peer, Stein bequeathed us not just philosophical works but also a spiritual testament demonstrating that reason and faith are not at odds but can be united in prayer and suffering. In remembering her, Breslau is reminded that holiness can be a bridge instead of a wall.
After the war, Breslau became Wrocław. The German population was expelled, and Poles from the Eastern Borderlands, Lviv, Vilnius and Stanisławów were resettled here. Many were told by their German hosts that they were coming ‘only for a while’. However, the returnees brought with them not only their suitcases but also their wounds, their language, their traditions and their faith. Wrocław was meant to become the ‘new Lviv’, yet the spirit of the place resisted such simplification. The pre-war Protestant churches rang out with Latin liturgy, but their history lingered; the city’s scarred architecture bore witness to the destruction long after the fighting had stopped.
And yet, in the shadow of these complex processes, the idea of reconciliation slowly matured. Instead of fading into obscurity, Wrocław became the site of a sometimes challenging, sometimes painful, but ultimately possible meeting – a meeting with pain, suffering, history, and finally, between people who were supposed to remain forever divided by war.
Fortunately, that was not the case.
‘We forgive and ask for forgiveness’
.In 1965, Wrocław brought forth one of the most important voices of the Polish Church in the 20th century. It was a voice of Bishop Bolesław Kominek, then Archbishop of Wrocław, the main author of the Letter of the Polish Bishops to the German Bishops, which contained the famous words: ‘We forgive and ask for forgiveness’. The letter caused an immediate uproar. The authorities of the Polish People’s Republic were furious, but it was also a bitter pill for many Poles who still vividly remembered Nazi crimes. The fact that Communist propaganda portrayed Germany as the eternal foe certainly didn’t help. But the Church understood that reconciliation must come before politics; that it was the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Thus the letter was written. It contained not only the famous sentence but also a detailed account of sins, injuries and transgressions. For without telling the truth, there can be no reconciliation, let alone forgiveness.
Sixty years later, those words resonate as the spiritual manifesto of Wrocław – a city that has risen from the rubble but is not defined by contempt. A city that welcomed strangers as its own. A city that has turned a foreign history into a shared memory. And time and again, it has opened itself to people in need, including now, as it hosts migrants from Ukraine and writes new pages of history.
Today’s Wroclaw doesn’t detach itself from the past but appreciates it in new ways. The city has vibrant ecumenical, Jewish, Orthodox and Greek Catholic communities. One can attend an Orthodox liturgy, a concert in a Lutheran church, a lecture at a Jewish cultural centre and meditation with the Dominicans. This is not about fashionable pluralism, but about something deeper – a spiritual coexistence of many traditions. It is as if the refugees from the Polish Borderlands had brought with them what matters most: the spirit of a Poland built not only by Poles but by all who chose the Republic as their home.
Wrocław is becoming not so much a centre of religion as a place of religious trust. It does not produce doctrines but fosters relationships; it makes the philosophy of dialogue a city-wide reality.
The future of reconciliation
.At a time of growing tensions, oversimplified slogans and fierce polarisation, Wrocław may offer a lesson not only for Poland, but for the entire world. The people who make up this city show that reconciliation doesn’t mean giving up the truth. It means seeking it together, even if it hurts, even if it’s hard. It is not silence in the face of injustice. It is a choice not to retaliate, but to try to abandon old patterns and weapons. To try again.
Religion is not merely a backdrop to this process. Given time to mature, it is a force with the potential to heal. Wrocław – the city of Edith Stein and Bolesław Kominek – is proof of this. It is a city forgiven and forgiving.
