Critically Examine the Argument that Nowa Huta Reflects with Amazing Clarity the Contemporary Contradictions in Poland

There are few examples in the world where the symbolic juxtaposition of a nation's past and future are as striking as they are in Poland. Throughout the country there are endless images representing an uneasy coexistence of a communist past in combination with a rapid move to the market economy. Yet perhaps the starkest change in terms of symbolism is most apparent in the purpose built socialist town of Nowa Huta. Nowa Huta was constructed …

…with a microcosm of some of difficulties confronting Poland in the transition to a market economy and further into the European Union. However certain social groups are more heavily affected than other and it is the working classes which are enduring the most negative aspects of such transformations. As a town which was composed wholly from the working class the problems of Poland in general are more heavily concentrated in industrial areas particularly Nowa Huta. .