Richard AmmonKalisz is a city in central Poland with about 120,000 inhabitants. The city is an important regional industrial and commercial centre, with many notable factories, the Calisia piano factory among them. The city is also a centre for traditional folk art. Kalisz is now considered to be the oldest town of Poland, because it was mentioned by Ptolemy as Calisia.
By the end of World War II approximately 30,000 local Jews had been murdered. Additional 20,000 local Catholics were either murdered or expelled to the General Government or to Germany as slave workers.
In 1945 the city had only 43,000 inhabitants, roughly half of the pre-war population.
Today the city bustles with relative prosperity and the residents have modestly good lives,
including great cooking (see last 3 photos).
