Pre WWII life in small town Poland

Can you help with this, please?
I need information on how people lived in pre WWII small town Poland. EG
Was there widespread electricity?
Did people use gas or solid fuel to cook with?
What was the public transport system like.
What % of urban roads were paved.
Were there cinemas in all/many towns?
How many households had radios?
What was the school system like?

Just about anything and everything.

Many thanks
W.

no electricity in the stix
coal was for heat and cooking
public transport? you mean horse and buggy? lol
paved roads? lol..
i think most urban roads were paved
cinemas and theather only in major cities (warsaw, krakow, gdansk..)
radios? some i have no idea about %s.
schools in the country and prior to ww2? hmmm not many, most people farmed.

My grandfather was living in small vilage in east Poland and he finished 8 classes of school. ;) There was cinema in small town near his vilage in Suwalki.

suwalki is a decent size town.

Now it is 70 000 people town. IMO it was much smaller before the war. It was only "powiatowe" town ;)

Cities looked like that

Lwow 1939 - east of the country



Warszawa



In Suwalki there were Cinema Army Churches Schools ... ;-) nothing special. East Poland...

One of my grandfatheres was from pre war Warsaw :), the another was form vilage in east Poland. He finished his school in his vilage. I haven't asked him if there was electicy in his vilage. In biger towns situation was much better.

Middle town is shown in Agnieszka Holland movie Europe Europe, at the begining we can see how towns in western Poland looked like.

Wrong.

Even small cities in previous German and Austrian zones had electricity, tramways, city gas etc.
Not to mention some movie theatres.

On the contrary the Russian sector of partitioned Poland was one of the most backward regions in Europe.
Maybe with exception for big cities.
The rest was just like Russia.

You are always forgetting that most of Russian population live in the big cities (about 80%), contrary for Poland

The topic is "pre WW2", not now.

wrong? lol... i don't think so. when did electricity actually came to wide spread use?


and small towns.

east Poland before WWII (the poorest part of country)



central Poland - £ódz

Polish acteres before WWII (shortcuts form pre WWII Polish movies)

Many of the photo's show beautiful cobblestone for roadways.

I have part of another Polish movie from 1927

Eugeniusz Bodo - Może ty będziesz mą królewną



IMO we had cinemas in Poland before WWII ;) and electicity lol :)

Now something showing different aspects of pre WWII Poland :

Loda Halama 1939

it is enought ... :) of this movies form 1930s

definitley but not so much in the rural areas.

I don't know how it was in rural areas I haven't asked my grandfather and it is too late.

it really depended where you were.. western PL and closer to the major cities had power and more services.. out east and further away it wasn't all that.

Thanks for all the info. the region I am interested in is up near Bialystok - ex Russian partition. Wrt radios, my father used to talk of the Doctor in the street who had a radio and everyone would gather round the open window to listen to the news.

Thanks again.

Even so. Russian population except Ukrain and Belorussia were even in those times mostly urban.

oh constatnine we have seen urban Russians in Poland... no comment

My grandmother is form Lwow. Where can I find albums with this town's pictures.