Let Heritage Die!

351

Research Article

Let Heritage Die!

The Ruins of Trams at Depot No. 5 in
Wrocław, Poland
n Dawid Kobiałka
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
dawidkobialka@wp.pl

Abstract
This paper is a case study of the trams now kept at Depot No. 5 at Legnicka 65 in
Wrocław, Poland. The site provides a context for exploring two core issues around
archaeological approaches to the contemporary past. The first is how materiality and
immateriality are deeply interwoven in the context of modern heritage sites, with the
overlap providing the grounds for discussion on the material theology of modern ruins.
The second is the consequences of seeing modern ruins as heritage sites worth pre-
serving for future generations. The conclusion of this paper is that if heritage is to be
saved, it should be saved first of all from its saviours.

Introduction
Archaeology at the beginning of the twenty-first century expresses a new interest in
material culture and the contemporary world, discernible in numerous books (e.g. Buchli
and Lucas 2001; Schofield 2005; Holtorf and Piccini 2009; Harrison and Schofield
2010; Olsen 2010; Olsen et al. 2012; González-Ruibal 2013; Olsen and Pétursdóttir
2014) and articles (e.g. Olivier 2003; Olsen 2003, 2007; González-Ruibal 2007, 2008,
2012; Shanks 2007; Webmoor 2007; Burström 2008; Webmoor and Witmore 2008;
Harrison and Schofield 2009; Harrison 2011; Pétursdóttir 2012). These works not only
attempt to account for the needs of the archaeology of the contemporary past, but
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supply fresh empirical studies of how archaeologists engage with the material present.

Keywords: heritage; memory; materiality; archaeology of the contemporary past;

modern ruins

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Rodney Harrison (2011, 160) even claims that the archaeology of the recent past is the
future of archaeology in general. Archaeology will be relevant when it touches problems
that help in understanding the present and the future. However, such archaeology has
to show its strength in practice. This strength seems to lie in a specifically archaeologi-
cal engagement in materiality. As Laurent Olivier has recently and accurately indicated:
History will always have infinitely more to say about past events, just
as anthropology will have more to say about the way in which human
communities function. The theoretical strength of archaeology resides in its
exclusive relation to material remains, which is what distinguishes it from
all other disciplines in the social sciences. It draws its immense theoretical
potential from its study of the materiality of the present. As scholars from
other disciplines have sensed, there lies therein the source of a radically
new approach to the world, for archaeology’s relation to matter leads to a
veritable phenomenology of the present (Olivier 2013, 127).
In short, studying “the materiality of the present” is frequently connected to the issue
of memory. Archaeologists studying modern material culture investigate part of the lives
of human beings who are often still living. Therefore, such material culture, having been
part of human life, is a part of human memory too. This might be one of the strengths
of the archaeology of the contemporary past: to approach things which are still part of
the lives of humans and, consequently, their memories. This aspect of material culture
definitely includes modern ruins.
Shannon Lee Dawdy (2010) has noticed that archaeologists and sociocultural anthro-
pologists have not paid enough attention to modern ruins. For a long time, ancient ruins
have appeared to be more important than those from the recent past. Nonetheless,
there are stories waiting to be told about more recent relics. As she argues:
[A]rchaeologists and anthropologists have not looked at the ruins of
modernity as productively as we could for what they tell us about the
downturns of economic cycles, the social life they generate, or the politics
of their creation. Some ruins are long lasting, either because maintained
or because utterly neglected. Others are dramatic but short-lived
things. Studying why and how ruins are not only made but also erased,
commemorated, lived in, commodified, and recycled can tell us at least as
much about society as the processes that created the original edifices.
(Dawdy 2010, 772)
In particular, Dawdy discusses modern ruins as the materialisation of the failures of capital-
ism. They can also be seen as heritage, and this is the perspective offered in this paper.
One of the most urgent problems in the heritage sector has been effective ways of
preserving heritage for the future. It is as if the majority of discussions about the role of
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heritage come down to the effective preservation of things from the distant past and
more recent times for the generations to follow. At the most elementary level, preserving
heritage means to stop its destruction, decay and—to put it rather metaphorically—death.
From this point of view, destruction and decay are enemies of heritage. This is, however,
a one-sided perspective. Decay is an essential and inherent aspect of every piece of

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heritage. Decay is actually a creative practice. It should be seen as a process of creative

destruction that contributes to new forms of heritage. This is precisely the point recently
made by a number of researchers (e.g. Holtorf 2001; González-Ruibal 2008; Harrison
2013, Chapter 8; Buchli 2013, Chapter 7; DeSilvey 2014; Rico 2014). Modern ruins
are, without doubt, a context where this creative destruction and its consequences for
archaeological research are clearly discernible and may be analysed. In other words,
decay is the very essence of the social life of material culture (Shanks 1998).
An example of material culture (modern ruins), where materiality and memory are
deeply interwoven with constant decay, is a certain tram depot in Wrocław (Poland).
During the survey of the site—the results of which are presented in this paper—I tried to
adopt the archaeology of the contemporary past approach. First, I give a brief descrip-
tion of the site’s history, to focus later on some interesting problems which confront
us, such as places where dilapidated cars and trams are left to ruin as heritage sites.
I also refer to cinema, where issues often discussed by archaeologists—for example,
ruins, material culture, decay, heritage-in-the-making etc. —are staged in a way that is
worthy of closer attention. In short, the paper is a defence of the importance of mate-
riality versus immateriality in heritage. Recently, there seems to be an over-abundance
of publications devoted to the spiritual, or as I shall put it, existential side of heritage,
modern ruins and intangible heritage (e.g. Mire 2007; Fowles 2010; Solli 2011; Chilton
2012). I do not call for the urgent preservation of this fascinating site. The trams are an
example of creative destruction: a decay that lets vehicles (trams) die and gives them
life as heritage of the recent past.

The site
Wrocław lies in the western part of modern-day Poland and was the first Polish city to
introduce trams, in the 1880s (Maciejewski 2004; Lewandowski and Molecki 2006). At
that time, however, Wrocław was part of Germany and known in German as Breslau,
and the first tram company in the town was Breslauer Strassen-Eisenbahn-Gesellchaft
(Cahir 2008). Wrocław had approximately one million citizens at the beginning of the
twentieth century, and like many modern cities it needed an effective and quick public
transport system. Trams, at first horse-drawn and then from 1906 electric, provided
one solution to the problem.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, trams were mostly made of wood,
with a steel chassis. The first trams to trundle along the streets of Wrocław were Linde-
Hofmann Standard vehicles built by a local company. They are actually the oldest and
amongst the most dilapidated trams to be found at Depot No. 5 on Legnicka Street. The
other trams at the site were produced by Kontal in Chorzów (Poland) in the 1950s and
1960s. According to Janusz Korzeniowski, a member of the Wrocław Enthusiasts’ Asso-
ciation (Towarzystwo Miłosników
 Wrocławia), these vehicles were in use in Wrocław up
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until 1977.1 As well as those carrying passengers, other types of trams used for technical-
maintenance purposes are also stored at the depot, e.g. a sprayer, a grinding machine and

1. Interview for a news report entitled “Zabytkowe cmentarzysko,” broadcast as part of Fakty TVN on
March 7, 2013. The report is available online from Fakty’s YouTube channel at: http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=W5-Aq84D_bY.

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F igure 1. An old tram depot: Depot No. 5 at Legnicka 65 in Wrocław (Photograph by author).

so on. All in all, at the time of the survey, there were 39 tram carriages at the site. The site
was built between 1901–1902 as a service depot for the renovation of trams (Jerczyns ki
2001) (Figure 1); it was partially destroyed during World War Two, and then later rebuilt.
The old Linde-Hofmann Standard carriages were officially recognised as cultural
heritage in 1997. Some of them have been renovated and today they are even used
as a tourist attraction in Wrocław (Korzeniowski 1995). Old rolling-stock belongs to
the city, which has granted the Association of Wrocław Public Transport Enthusiasts
(Towarzystwo Miłosników Komunikacji Miejskiej we Wrocławiu) permission to protect
and conserve the trams. Of course, the trams were officially listed as cultural heritage
in order to better protect them for present and future society. This is why one of the
renovated Linde-Hofmann Standard trams, called Baba Jaga, is now a tram-café that
runs through the city with tourists on board (see Korzeniowski 1995, Figure 2). The local
authorities were very positive about what was happening with the old trams. In 2000, the
old depot became the Museum of Wrocław City Transportation (Muzeum Komunikacji
Miejskiej we Wrocławiu) (see Figure 2).
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Nonetheless, the trams are still legally owned by the local city council. And here
comes the crux of the story: the city has never had sufficient funds to protect the trams
effectively. They were simply ignored for a number of decades, and funding is why they
remain outside in the open, exposed to the constant process of decay.
The site and the trams may be described as an interesting example of modern heritage:

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 Let Heritage Die! 355

F igure 2. An overview of trams at Legnicka 65 in Wrocław. These trams are from the 1960s and
1970s (Photograph by author).

what was for decades considered worthless junk has all of a sudden become valuable
heritage of the recent past. For this reason these artefacts deserve closer attention,
and likewise from an archaeological point of view. The next part of this paper briefly
describes and illustrates the results of a survey of Depot No. 5, which I conducted on
May 18, 2013.

Material theology of modern ruins: the case of vehicles from the recent
past
At first glance, what ruins confront us with is something that archaeologists especially
like to focus on: the issue of memory and materiality. Questions around this subject,
as well as others, were raised by Mats Burström (2008, 2009) in his thought-provoking
studies of a car cemetery at Kyrkö Mosse in Sweden. There are almost 150 car wrecks
at this old junkyard, the oldest of which date back to the 1930s. According to Burström,
the site is an interesting example of modern heritage, and the different paradoxical
situations it causes. One concerns the very definition of the site itself: is it cultural
heritage at all, and if so, should it therefore be legally protected and preserved as
heritage (of modern times)? After much discussion and campaigning, it was decided
that the site is cultural heritage exemplifying the positive and negative aspects of the
Industrial Revolution.
Like many modern ruins, the car cemetery has prompted existential reflection
among visitors (Burström 2009). This is presupposed in calling the site a “cemetery,”
and this aspect of the site in particular is explored and discussed by Burström. Such
places are a medium for nostalgic reflection on personal childhood and the vanity of
human life, among other things. Walking around the car wrecks, which are corroded
by rust, and observing how Nature reclaims what belongs to her, one cannot help
but reflect upon existential dilemmas of humanity. Burström highlights this aspect of
ruins and the fact that this was previously neglected by archaeologists for not sound-
ing sufficiently scientific, at least within a positivist paradigm of practising science (in
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this case, archaeology). Burström further claims that this feature of modern ruins is
especially relevant for us all and should be taken into account more seriously, includ-
ing in archaeological research into modern ruins. He concludes his paper with a kind
of existential thought of his own:

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Walking around the car cemetery at Kyrkö Mosse I find myself looking for
marks and models of which I have memories of my own: the Saabs my
parents used to have when I was growing up, my grandpa's old Opel. The
latter, a blue 1962 Opel Olympia Record 1700, was the car I drove during
my first archaeological fieldworks, surveying ancient monuments for the
Swedish National Heritage Board in the mid 1980s. Why am I looking for
that model now at the car cemetery? I do not know, but it feels like a nice
idea to meet again after all these years. (Burström 2009, 142)
No wonder, then, that Burström (2009) highlights the close relationship between mod-
ern heritage and the problem of memory and materiality. Seeing and touching things
from one’s own childhood and now in ruins holds significance for people. To put it more
generally, it is as if the lost and dead past were present again. Olivier (2001, 185–186)
suggests something very similar when he discusses the archaeology of the contemporary
past by referring to a “ghost town” in Oradour (France) from World War Two. One of the
manifestations of the horrors of the war is a car wreck in the town square. From this
point of view, it can be said that ruins are important because they embody the past and
stimulate reflection upon one’s own vanity. Indeed, this is an approach to modern ruins
that is very interesting and worth pursuing. But, modern ruins can also be approached
in a more materialistic way, so to speak.
The tram depot is located in the northwestern part of Wrocław. It is only 20 minutes’
walk from the city centre: the metaphor of the city jungle acquires here a quite literal
(material) meaning (Figure 3). Today the site is visited by many people, both local inhabit-
ants and tourists. However, after an article in the local media (Torz 2013) in which the
author complained about the ineffective protection of Wrocław's cultural heritage, this
place has actually become a problem for the city. Although the trams are legally protected
heritage, they will soon disappear (die) forever if they are not quickly and effectively
rescued from further decay.
The title of the article by Marcin Torz seems to speak for itself: “See how Heritage has
been Destroyed” (my translation). This is a call for urgent action to save the site for the
future. Torz also implicitly follows the previously mentioned “existentialist” perspective
on modern ruins: he calls the site a “tram cemetery.” Local TV also became interested
in the trams.2 The media presented the site as if it were time-travel: going into the tram
depot and seeing all these trams in ruins is like a nostalgic journey back in time, a
trigger setting off existential questions, and, finally, entering a prohibited and lost zone
of the past (see also Olivier 2001; Burström 2009). The motifs of ruins, of entering a
prohibited zone and so on have often been explored by cinema. A reference to some
films may shed some alternative light on archaeological approaches to modern ruins
(see also Dawdy 2010).
The Book of Eli (2010, dir. Albert and Allen Hughes) touches upon problems which are
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relevant to us in this context. The main hero, named Eli (played by Denzel Washington), is
an outcast who travels through America. However, this is not the America that we know.
This is a post-Armageddon world, a world in total ruins: cities are abandoned, buildings

2. See Footnote 1 above.

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F igure 3. Inside of Linde-Hofmann Standard tram (Photograph by author).

destroyed; in short, the entire continent has become an archaeological site. The title, The
Book of Eli, refers to a secret book in the hands of the protagonist which can offer hope
for those who survived the end of the world. There are others who desire this book too,
because, as one of the villains says, it gives the power to control people. It is not hard to
guess that The Book of Eli is nothing less than the Bible. It is particularly worth highlighting
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from an archaeological perspective that the world is shown in a very material way. Everything
is in ruins, there is no place for “idealism” in such a world. But this materialism, a world in
ruins, evokes existential issues: only the Bible, that is, God, can save us (humanity). As in
the case of Kyrkö Mosse analysed by Burström: a world in decay (the car cemetery) raises
eternal/existential questions (e.g. what is the meaning of human life? etc.).

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Andrei Tarkovsky, however, presents a much more interesting perspective in his masterful
film Stalker (1979). The plot is about a kind of guide, the Stalker, who smuggles people
into a prohibited zone where the laws of modern physics do not apply. The aesthetics
of the film are very ambiguous. On the one hand, it seems that Tarkovsky is looking for
the meaning of human life in a world abandoned by God. The viewer sees the wreckage
of cars and tanks; it is a post-industrial landscape where Nature is slowly reclaiming
what is hers. Tarkovsky, of course, shows the inertia of modern material culture and
human life as such. The visual image he presents is of a world destroyed; everything in
“The Zone” lies in ruins. But he also shows that the same inertia is an inherent part of
Nature itself, which is a metaphor for God, a deeper meaning of human life and, finally,
existential reflection. Nature in Stalker is not our good and benevolent Gaia, the harmoni-
ous mother of humans and other beings. This Nature is under the influence of the very
same processes that affect humanity. This aspect of Stalker was also noticed by the
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek (2001, 104). Following Žižek, it is rather tempting to
describe this unique Tarkovskian perspective as a materialist theology of modern ruins:
The typical stance of the Tarkovskian hero on the threshold of a dream is
to be on the lookout for something, with his senses fully focused and alert;
then, all of a sudden, as if through a magic transubstantiation, this most
intense contact with material reality changes it into a dreamscape. One
is thus tempted to claim that Tarkovsky stands for the attempt, perhaps
unique in the history of cinema, to develop an attitude of materialist
theology, of a deep spiritual stance which draws its strength from its very
abandonment of intellect and its immersion into material reality.
(Žižek 2001, 103)
To put it simply, Stalker stands in clear opposition to The Book of Eli. The latter film
shows how staging “materialism” (modern ruins, decay and so on) has to end in “ide-
alism” (there is something more than the material world). Stalker indicates something
much more radical. It is rather that materialism has its own immaterial, theological
dimension. In accordance with this, what ruins might confront us with is not just the
problem of the meaning of life. In other words, it is not only that materialism (modern
ruins) causes “idealism” (existential reflection), as in The Book of Eli. On the contrary,
what modern ruins often indicate is ways of human “immersion in material reality,” as
in Stalker. This is why Stalker can be considered as a manifesto of the archaeology of
the contemporary past. A closer look at human immersion into material reality is what
links both. By the same token, approaching modern ruins does not have to end in an
existential intellectual reflection upon our own condition, and humanity at large, as in
the experiences so nicely described by Burström (2009). Modern ruins have their own
inherent, theologically material value, as Žižek points out.
Of course the visitors to the car cemetery at Kyrkö Mosse have most probably raised
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the existential question of the meaning of their own lives, as indeed did Burström him-
self. But the first question to ask is: who are these troubled people who worry so much
about their own existence? To make a risky simplification, are they not most likely to
be young, well-educated people who arrive there in their new Volvos, with the latest

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iPhone in hand, wearing fashionable sunglasses and expensive clothes? My point is

both a very simple and a Marxist one: the individuals who worry so much about their
own existence are those who at the same time have a relatively safe, good life. For the
subaltern classes, there is no time to worry about eternal problems because they are
focused on surviving until tomorrow. Indeed, this existential reflection upon ruins was
present at the origins of antiquarianism and archaeology in the nineteenth century too
(Trigger 2006, Chapters 2–3). Antique and modern ruins do not differ so much in the end.
When I surveyed the tram depot in Wrocław, I found many artefacts such as discarded
beer cans, and beer and vodka bottles alongside cigarette butts. The run-down depot
has obviously served as a meeting place for poor people (unemployed or working class)
to drink alcohol and hang out. The trams were used more in the context of day-to-day
reality than as a site of spiritual reflection upon one’s own existence and the vanity of
humankind. I also documented many empty cat food tins, which might suggest that
both the building and the trams were a natural environment for cats (Figure 4). Contrary
to the connotations of the name used by Torz (2013), the “tram cemetery” is in fact a
landscape very much alive. This interpretation can be supported by other finds, such
as fragments of fish bones and food for cats noticed during the survey.
The above observations link to other industrial sites, and indeed to the trend towards
so-called “ruin porn,” a term which covers the growing fascination with abandoned
modern industrial ruins (e.g. Edensor 2005; DeSilvey 2012; Pétursdóttir and Olsen
2014). Ruins presented in photographs, for example, appear to be dead and forgot-
ten places. They seem intriguing mainly from an aesthetic point of view. What such a
perspective overlooks is that the same ruins often also hint at people’s use of these
places, and that normally they are not formally preserved either. Ruins are often places
where the homeless seek shelter. They are landscapes of creative street art as well as
places where materials (e.g. copper pipes) can be salvaged to be sold later, to mention
just a few kinds of social life and afterlife of modern ruins (Edensor 2005; Dawdy 2010,
776; Kobiałka et al. 2014). That is why, from a closer perspective, ruins are often as
much living landscapes now as they once were. The tram depot is a good example of
this phenomenon. People have used it simply as a meeting place.
Whilst visiting the site, one can also experience something very similar to Stalker: a
vision of culture (e.g. trams) and nature (e.g. trees) in decay (e.g. trees) (Simmel 1958).
It is a world (a Tarkovskian Zone) in decomposition and decay (Figure 5); it is a creative
destruction of modern material heritage.

God save us from the saviours: heritage beyond preservation

There is one very Hegelian point of archaeological practice concerning how death and
destruction bring life under a new form (Hegel 1981 [1837]; Žižek 2012). Archaeolo-
gists like to see themselves as the police of cultural heritage, endlessly striving for the
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preservation of priceless artefacts, or, more generally, of cultural heritage (e.g. Holtorf
2007, Chapter 5). However, as some archaeologists (e.g. González-Ruibal 2008) seem
to suggest, archaeologists are, at the same time, the worst thing that can happen to
heritage. When artefacts which for centuries had lain hidden in the ground are discov-
ered, often—to put it bluntly—negative things happen to them. The artefacts disappear;

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F igure 4. Archaeological garbage (cans, plastic bottles, etc.) inside one of the trams
(Photograph by author).
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F igure 5. Cultural heritage in ruins? (Photograph by author)

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F igure 6. Is a (blue) tarpaulin a way of preserving or rather of destroying heritage? (Photograph

by author)

sometimes they are destroyed, or eventually go into storage in museums where they
are then neglected forever. They are simply neutralised and sanitised and thus lose their
power as ruined sites and objects (González-Ruibal 2008). Something similar can be
said apropos the tram depot in Wrocław.
The local media has shown an interest in the trams because some of them are offi-
cially protected heritage, although in reality, the trams were not protected in any special
way for decades and have been in a constant process of decay. And because they are
cultural heritage, they nonetheless should be preserved for the future. As Katarzyna
Hawrylak-Brzezowska, City Historic Preservation Officer in Wrocław, argues: “They [the
trams] are worth protecting because they actually show the level of civilisation at the
time” (my translation).3 Due to a lack of money, only very provisional action has been
undertaken so far. Figure 6 shows a (blue) tarpaulin which was supposed to help to
preserve one of the trams!
The point to make here is the following: it is possible to speak about the trams as
heritage, because they were not carefully preserved from the very beginning. Quite the
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opposite, in fact: they were left neglected, ignored for decades, and this is one of the
factors why a heritage site such as the tram depot at Legnicka 65 in Wrocław exists
today. That is to say, the trams can be considered as heritage because no one wanted

3. Television interview, see Footnote 1 for details.

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their preservation. They were out-of-use vehicles. The trams were simply junk, huge
pieces of rubbish that could not be easily disposed of in a refuse bin. This is the reason
why they were collected in one place at Depot No. 5. The paradoxical (dialectical) nature
of this situation is worth pointing out. The site came about because the authorities did
not know what to do with the trams that were no longer in operation, and so the trams
were dumped at the depot to silently await death (decomposition), so to speak.
To put it simply, the authorities were definitely not Hegelians. They were not aware of
the dialectical tension between rubbish and heritage. By letting the trams decay in the
first place, they actually created a heritage site which turned out to be a real problem
for them in the end. This is also a lesson from a wonderful poem by Jorge Luis Borges
entitled “Milonga of Manuel Flores” (Borges 1999 [1965], 253). The poem is about the
death of Manuel Flores, a good friend of the narrator. At first glance, the poem is full
of sorrow and pain because of Manuel's impending death. Nonetheless, this very sor-
row—and this is the whole beauty of Borges—is not caused by a feeling of the eternal
loss of a beloved friend. The narrator is worried, not because Manuel is simply about to
die, but rather the opposite: his friend is going to live on forever in the narrator’s memory.
Manuel Flores will become, in a way, a very part of the narrator himself: by dying Manuel
is actually alive forever. The very same process concerns the tram depot: following a
long period of agony and decay the trams have been reborn as heritage. To be more
precise, it is their twilight existence between life and death, so characteristic of the
remains of the contemporary past, that has granted their transformation into heritage.
And today the people who voice the opinion that the site should be better preserved
and that a museum ought to be created there are in fact voicing the opposite: preserva-
tion of the site means quite literally to destroy what the site is really about, for it is a place
of nature and culture in decay, a place of entropy (see Figure 6) (Olivier 2001; Shanks
and Pearson 2001; Witmore forthcoming). Accordingly, the problem of memory and
materiality of modern ruins is so important because of the very opposite. Sites like the
car cemetery at Kyrkö Mosse and the tram depot in Wrocław were for long decades
places of non-memory, of oblivion. What I mean by ‘non-memory’ is the simple obser-
vation that nobody looked after the sites; literally, practically no one remembered they
were even there. Here may also lie their relevance as places of “immersion into reality.”
However, this “immersion into reality,” the contemporary fascination with the materiality
of ruined vehicles (ruins in general), lies in its own immateriality or the threat of immateriality.
Along these lines, the ruined cars and trams are so intriguing because of their advanced
state of disintegration, and most probably within a few decades they will disappear for-
ever. This is the very lesson of Tarkovsky's Stalker: materialism (modern ruins) has its own
immaterial (theological) dimension and crucial meaning for itself. Most modern heritage
sites confront the threat of legal protection. Burström notices it in relation to Kyrkö Mosse
too, when he claims that “the condition suggested for preserving the junkyard is to stop
© 2015 Equinox Publishing Ltd

just that process—the ongoing decay—that characterises the site and fascinates people
so much that they go there almost on a pilgrimage!” (Burström 2009, 137)
Such places are so intriguing because of their constant decay. I have yet to hear voices
calling for the legal protection of the most recent trams which trundle through the streets
of Wrocław as being heritage, though without any doubt, the new Škoda 16 T tram bought

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 Let Heritage Die! 363

F igure 7. When will Škoda 16 T become cultural heritage of the first decade of the twenty-first
century? (Photograph by author)

by the city between 2006–2008 will become cultural heritage in the future as well (Figure
7). For sure, it will become the past of the future at some point. Nonetheless, it can be
claimed that because the materiality of the new trams does not show its “theological” aspect
(a world in decay, immersion into reality), it is too early for the trams to be recognised as
heritage, a place where human memories are embodied in materiality.
There are many reasons why there is such a desperate wish for heritage to be pre-
served. One is that modern ruins enable people to remember (travel in time to) the past.
Most certainly, the desire to preserve the tram depot or the Swedish car cemetery is
part of the heritage crusade. David Lowenthal (1996) coined the term to point out the
fact that things are increasingly conceived as cultural heritage nowadays. Almost eve-
rything is considered cultural heritage today; not only the pyramids in Egypt and other
outstanding achievements of humankind but even the most banal, ordinary things can
be cultural heritage. In short, heritage is everywhere today (Harrison 2013, Chapter 1).
It is safe to say that the material culture found inside the trams and the trams them-
selves should be labelled as cultural heritage too, a sign of the recent past. Of course
this heritage crusade is not a local process. It is something that touches almost every
© 2015 Equinox Publishing Ltd

corner of the contemporary world.

Accordingly, this process can potentially change the very coordinates of human life.
At this point, one is even tempted to refer to Hegel’s definition of a human being: “man
is an animal sick unto death” (after Žižek 1989, 4). Human beings do not so much sim-
ply live, they are-in-the-world, as Heidegger would have put it. It is through language,

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 364 Research Article

F igure 8. Heritage in practice: a bottle of vodka (Photograph by author).

culture in general, that human beings are alienated from nature. However, from the
perspective of the beginning of the twenty-first century, perhaps it is time to slightly
develop the Hegelian insight and claim that humans are also animals sick unto cultural
heritage. What defines our contemporary times is not so much the fact that we know
we all die at some point, that we are sick unto death; but rather the heritagisation of our
most ordinary customs, artefacts, etc.: sickness unto cultural heritage (see also Meskell
2002). Burström (2008, 2009) precisely highlights this aspect of cultural heritage as a
medium of existential reflection.
One can only hope that nobody will preserve this fascinating heritage site for future
generations. And that it will remain a place where one can enter freely, and without hav-
© 2015 Equinox Publishing Ltd

ing to buy an entrance ticket sample a piece of this heritage (as I, of course, did) and
drink cheap but still very good Polish vodka (Figure 8). In other words, instead of being
somewhere that prompts contemplation of one’s own life, it should still be a place where
human life simply happens. This is the very reason why heritage should be used rather
than saved (see also Poulios 2010). Following on from the previous metaphor of the

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 Let Heritage Die! 365

F igure 9. Heritage beyond preservation (Photograph by author).

birth and death of cultural heritage, if they had become heritage worth preserving, the
trams would have died as a place where day-to-day human life takes place. Based then
on this insight, if heritage is to be saved, it should be saved first of all from its saviours
(see also Holtorf 2001; Olivier 2001, 184) (Figure 9).
To avoid any misunderstanding, I do not call for the abandonment of preserving heritage
as such. My point is very simple here: there are situations when it is better to let things
(heritage) decay and die, so to speak, than to try to conserve them at all cost. It is clear
that—let us call it—a non-conservation ethos has limitations, like: to what sorts of herit-
age should this stance of non-conservation be applied?; what about contemporary art,
or Auschwitz and so on?; what would be the political consequences of inaction in those
cases? Nonetheless, no less obvious is the fact that other ways of engagement will be
needed, with heritage only an “obsession” with its preservation (see more in Harrison
2013). I believe that sometimes doing nothing is the best thing we, as archaeologists
and heritage managers, can do for heritage.
© 2015 Equinox Publishing Ltd

Conclusion
The tram depot in Wrocław is one of many examples of heritage of the recent past.
These ruins of old vehicles are part of Poland’s transportation history. The oldest trams
date back to the 1920s, the most recent are from the 1960s and 1970s.

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 366 Research Article

The trams transferred people from one place in Wrocław to another. Today, however,
resting in peace at Legnicka 65, although no longer able to transport the inhabitants
of Wrocław, it seems that through their materiality the trams have become vehicles for
human memories. People go there, see the trams, experience their materiality, and
some of the visitors may well recall the days when these ruins were new and beautiful
machines. These aspects of modern ruins are often analysed by archaeologists (Olivier
2003; Burström 2008; Olsen and Pétursdóttir 2014). For sure, modern ruins in them-
selves have the potential to bring back memories because of their material aspects.
Ruins are able to stimulate people to remember because they were something forgotten
(non-memory) for decades and sometimes even centuries.
All in all, there is no reason to complain about seeing the old and more recent trams in
total ruins. Walking around the old trams, one witnesses the process of heritage being
born and at the same time dying. That is the reason why a call to “see how heritage
has been destroyed” (Torz 2013, my translation) always has to be supplemented by its
own opposite: see how heritage has been emerging; experience heritage-in-the-making.
This may well prove to be one of the advantages of the archaeology of the contem-
porary past. It might indicate the inherent relations between materiality–immateriality,
memory–non-memory, and so on, of such heritage places as the old tram depot. What
for one person is a cause for complaint (see how heritage has been destroyed) might,
for an archaeologist, be a chance to approach the “phenomenology of the present”
(e.g. the creative destruction of modern ruins). By the same token, I claim that there are
situations when, if heritage is to be saved, it should be saved first of all from its saviours.
Decay is an essential aspect of the social life of material culture, including modern
ruins like the trams from Wrocław. So let heritage die!

Acknowledgements
This publication is part of my research work at Linnaeus University, thanks to a Swedish
Institute scholarship. A few paragraphs of this text have already been posted online on
Archaeolog blog (Kobiałka 2013).

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