Powodzianka, Wrocław

Books are the burden carried by the woman before you. Powodzianka, created by Wrocław sculptor Stanisław Wysocki, commemorates the city’s struggle against the Millennium Flood of July 1997. The figure recalls an especially vivid part of that effort: volunteers protected the University of Wrocław’s threatened library collections from the river nearby.

For many hours, unnamed people defended the city, its historic fabric and its accumulated treasures against the floodwater. Their work succeeded in saving Wrocław’s most valuable holdings, even though the flood caused substantial material damage. The monument was unveiled in July 1998, on the flood’s first anniversary.

The books give this memorial its human scale: it honors not a famous leader, but the many volunteers whose names were never recorded. It stands at the eastern tip of Kępa Mieszczańska, beside the point where the Oder divides into its southern and northern branches, near the University Bridges and the university’s main building. The water around this small sculpture is therefore part of the story it preserves.