Kupferberg - Miedzianka, a small town not far from Jelenia Góra, is gone. Just as there is no Town Hall Inn, where local ladies, gossiping at one of the tables, crooked in disgust as their husbands sang “If you had another mother-in-law, then…”. Gone are the parties where Martin Lachmann played the saxophone and dancing couples whirled around. There is also no brewery, no paper mill, no stonemason’s shop, no craft workshops. Gone are Mrs Trenkler, who sewed shirts, Mrs Assmann and Alex, who did bedding, Mrs Bräuer, who traded in butter and eggs. There is no cemetery on the road to Mniszków overlooking the Janowickie Ore Mountains, and there are still memories in the area of tombstones being pulled out of the ground with tractors and dogs dragging human bones all over the village.
Filip Springer spent more than two years looking for answers to the question of why a town with a seven-century tradition disappeared from the face of the earth. Was it as a result of the damage caused by the robbery of uranium mining by the Russians carried out here between 1948 and 1952? Or were the tales of mining damage invented by the authorities as an excuse to demolish the town and hide a secret from the past?
Publisher: WYDAWNICTWO KARAKTER
