Growing up in the Prussian fort? The Strugarek family

This is the fourth stop along the audio tour presenting the history of the Cathedral Island. For more information about the tour, please click here.

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The room we have entered is one of the brightest. For this reason it was suitable for accommodation. Already in the Prussian times this room was used as a soldiers’ chamber and a room for the personnel. Look at the two surviving original semicircular windows. The characteristic drawers under the windowsill were used to collect condensing water. To the right of the windows there is a fireplace where soldiers used to warm themselves up.

Although today it is hard to imagine, after the Second World War the Cathedral Lock became the home of two families with children. The housing crisis after the war meant that even such an austere building as a Prussian fortress became a good alternative. Despite difficult living conditions, as many as ten children were born in the building. One of them was Jan Strugarek. This is how he remembers his old home:

We didn’t have any home comforts. Just two rooms, no toilet. Upon entering through this big gate, first there was a hallway with cabinets for shoes and other things. […] There was this coal-fired furnace […] when it stopped burning, it was cold, right? Because of this huge gate and these draughty windows, when the temperature was minus 20 degrees Celsius, the water in a basin froze. […] When we all gathered for breakfast, there were twelve of us. Each week we ate 25 loaves of bread and 120 rolls! […] My mother never went to work, it was not an option because she had to manage all of this.

Back then the walls of the accommodation were painted white. Numerous siblings slept together – four in one bed. One room served as a kitchen, a bedroom, a dining room and a place for studying and washing clothes. In the 1960s electricity was introduced. A washboard was replaced with a washing machine and the Strugarek Family bought the first TV set.

Let’s look outside through the big window. There used to be a fenced yard in front of the Lock, where chickens and hens were kept. The Strugarek Family, just like their neighbours, had a close relationship with the nearby cathedral. Apart from working as train and tram drivers, fathers also got hired to help out in church gardens. Besides, boys would do odd jobs at the nearby seminaries and monasteries, for which the grateful nuns often gave the Strugarek Family a bucket of soup or hunter’s stew. Many children sang in the cathedral choir or served as altar boys. Archbishop Antoni Baraniak’s dog, the Saint Bernard named Perkun, was a great friend of the local children. He often ran away from his yard to the Lock’s gate, filling the building with loud barking.

Now let’s take a look through the small window on the other side of the room. The riverine neighbourhood provided children with countless opportunities to play. This is how Marian Dondajewski, one of the inhabitants from the nearby district of Śródka, remembers that time:

We didn’t need a pool. All summer we would spend time by the Cybina River and swim. […] We didn’t need an ice rink. The Cybina River froze and here, by the fort, you could easily skate. […] Here, in the place of today’s bridge, you could even sledge. We had excellent grounds for playing here.

The Strugarek Family lived in the Cathedral Lock until 1973 when they were given a new flat by the city. Other families living on Cathedral Island also moved in the 1970s to other residential areas in Poznań.

Let’s leave this room and go downstairs. You will find the next recording on the landing.