SABAJ S. - Memories of the years of construction of the Lenin Steelworks 1950-1956 [typescript].

SABAJ Stanisław - Silhouettes from those years. Memories of the years of the construction of the Lenin Steelworks 1950-1956[typescript]. Nowa Huta, 2 I-15 II 1970. 4, p. [1], 161. broch.
Covers slightly rubbed, otherwise good condition. Handwritten title on front cover, another handwritten name Stanislaw Soltys (author's correct name?). There, a secretarial stamp of an unknown editorial office with the date 31 X 1970, with a note that 2 copies of the typescript were submitted. In the text, handwritten corrections and few additions.
Written after 20 years, partly on the basis of surviving notes, memoirs of the construction of Nowa Huta and the combine. The text was written, as its author writes, "at the urging of writing down his memories of the first years of construction" and was not published. The narrative is fluid, with some literary qualities. The author was born in 1922, graduated from university, and in 1948 took a job at the publishing house of E. Kuthan's publishing house (about which he writes on several pages), in I 1950 he took a job at the 6th Engineering Division of P.P. "Beton-Stal" as head of the vocational training section, later as an employee of the Planning Department. Offices were initially located in Krakow (Starowiślna and Przemyska Streets), and soon moved to the construction site. The memoirs contain shorter or more extensive characterizations of a number of people, both among the senior management and lower-level employees. Sabaj writes about the construction of the railroad, communication with Krakow, leisure activities (games, ski rally, visits to cafes and restaurants), the tightened - not always effectively - labor discipline, the "dyspeptic" system of managing the construction of the steelworks, living conditions in the Nowa Huta housing estate, and trade. The author devoted separate chapters to the celebrations after Stalin's death and the echoes of October '56.
The author tries to remain objective and also presents the dark sides of the events and places described. For example, he writes: "The year 1954 was not at all peaceful in Nowa Huta. Chilling stories of murders, rapes, assaults, thefts, moral decay, rudeness, brutality, etc., continued to circulate about the city." And on the other hand: "I applied to the Works Council for an apartment, and in just two weeks the then housing clerk [...] gave me the addresses of two blocks of apartments where we could choose ourselves some two-room apartment." The telephone in the new apartment was connected within 24 hours.