This slim volume contains a wealth of information on aging in today's Poland. The topic, interesting by itself, is of particular importance when seen through the prism of Poland's experience in the last hundred years as the country moved from regaining independence after the Partitions era, to the high hopes of the Second Polish Republic, to the catastrophe of the German and Soviet occupation in the Second World War, to the post-war social and territorial changes, to the struggles and triumphs of the late twentieth century and the road to domestic tranquility and economic prosperity brought by EU membership. Many of the author's interviewees lived through several periods of great social turbulence and their memories have become inextricably linked with the modern history of Poland.
The author produced a comprehensive research of institutional, organizational, and personal aspects of the process of aging in Poland. In this, she combined approaches taken from gerontology, anthropology, and sociology to look at all facets of aging in a modern society profoundly aware of the imprint made on the psyche of many Poles by the country's recent history. While the author's background in gerontology provides indispensable insight and allows the reader to see aging from rarely discussed angles, the book does not delve too deeply in the clinical aspects of aging. It presents a balanced analysis of personal experiences within the context of organizational structural and socio-cultural institutions.
One of the main attractions is a detailed discussion of the Universities of the Third Age (UTA), a network of educational organizations that provides opportunities for formal learning to elderly people. The idea behind the UTA is that as the people age they should be encouraged to stay active, both socially and intellectually. The first UTA was established in 1975 in Warsaw. There are more than twenty individual UTAs in Poland today. The UTAs are using facilities of the existing institutions of higher learning and offer classes on various subjects, as diverse as history of architecture, computer science, and foreign languages. The main purpose of the UTAs is not to achieve high-level academic performance but to ensure the students’ engagement with civil society. The author specifically concentrated on two UTAs, in Wrocław and Poznan, which are considered the leading institutions of this kind in Poland.
The author presents a balanced view of UTAs, including both positive and negative aspects. Among the latter are limits on accessibility as the UTAs are located in large urban centers and cannot attract people from rural areas. Attendance is not free: there are fees with structures and amounts varying among individual organizations. People of impaired mobility have difficulties attending the classes. Educational programs are structured in such a way that they appeal mostly to people with a university-level education and leave out potential students with working class backgrounds.
An important purpose of the UTAs is to maintain interaction between the old and the young. As the author notices, the young generation in contemporary Poland is developing a dismissive attitude toward their older compatriots. The stereotyping of the older generation is often caused by a lack of awareness among young Poles of the complexity and often tragedy of the life experiences of the older generations. The book contains descriptions of specific programs intended to encourage intergenerational dialogue and thus maintain historical continuity of Poland's civil society.
The book is not limited to the discussion of aging in Poland only in the context of the UTAs. The author presents a detailed picture of institutional care facilities in Poland. The narrative, based on a center run by the Roman Catholic Church and a state-run Social Care Home, gives a profoundly compassionate and excellently detailed account of patients and personnel in these facilities.
Poland's older generations are deeply immersed in the images, experiences, and tragedies that comprise Poland's history in the past hundred years. Even those who did not live through the crucial moments of the country's recent history often have memories of friends and relatives who did. The author devotes a chapter of the book to the role played by the personal perception of history and nationality in the lives of senior Poles. Perhaps by inviting the readers to pay attention to the central place of historical memory in the life of the older generations of Poles the book adds an indispensable piece to the mosaic of the Polish social policy.
