The+Nowa+Huta

The Nowa Huta

The Nowa Huta is the easternmost district of Krakow, Poland. It has more than 200,000 inhabitants and it is one of the most packed areas of the city. The important area of present day Nowa Huta is one of the few places in Poland that, has settled continuously since the Neolithic age. It was discovered as a big Celtic settlement and Poland’s oldest Slavic settlements there. The Nowa Huta started in 1949 as a separate town near Krakow on land taken by the Communist government from former villages of Mogila, Pleszow and Krzeslawice. It was planned as a huge center of heavy manufacturing. The town was going to become an ideal town for Communist propaganda and populated by industrial workers mostly. In 1951 it was brought together with Krakow as a new district. The reasons for constructing such an industrial town near Krakow was mostly because of communism. One form of a structure lacking from the original urban design of the Nowa Huta was a Roman Catholic Church. The public campaign constructing it lasted numerous years. As early as 1960, violent street fights with riot police broke out over a wooden cross. The cross had been erected without a permit. The residents were supported by Bishop Karol Wojtyla, the upcoming Pope John Paul II. In 1967, permits to construct the wanted church were granted and in time a church called the Lord's Ark was built. The complex was sacred by Wojtyla in 1977. In the 1980s the Nowa Huta became a place of many violent street protests of the Solidarity Polish trade union movement, fought by the police.