In the 1980s, Poland became the first country to openly oppose the communist regime from Moscow. The protests at the Gdańsk shipyards were world news. The trade union leader Lech Wałęsa of the Solidarność union gained pop star status in the west. The first free elections in 1989 ushered in a new era. This revolution made an impression. That’s why I got curious about this country. I only knew Poland from the history books, the concentration camps from the Second World War. And I knew about Katowicze as the most polluted industrial region in Europe. So I bought a train ticket to Warsaw with only a backpack, two analog still cameras and a box of films. I went there without a plan or concrete idea of what I wanted to do there. For me, looking and photographing was enough. Travel across this country by train, get off at the next station and then see what would happen.
