When I first heard of Marek Kohn’s The Stories Old Towns Tell, I assumed it was just another travelogue with a dash of history. Turns out, it’s the other way around. It’s a historical travelogue, anchored in World War II, that occasionally surfaces in the present. In it, Kohn turns his lens on seven old towns across Central and Eastern Europe.
The idea took root in 2018 when Kohn revisited his family home in Poland. That trip set him on a journey through Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. Here he confronted the messy plurality of history. His question was deceptively simple: how do towns destroyed in war tell their stories today?
“It was emotionally natural for me to use my personal heritage as a basis for examining a constellation of European heritage.” – Marek Kohn
Kohn’s strength lies in his meticulous research. He spotlights half-forgotten historical facts and deeply human accounts. His narrative can be heavy, but it reels you in. He segues from one story to another with WWII always lurking in the background.
The seven sites in the book comprise the old towns of: Warsaw, Vilnius, Lublin, Würzburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Prague and Frankfurt am Main. Kohn keeps his focus on the Middle Europe, possibly, because this zone suffered the most devastation in the WW2. The relentless air-bombings from the Allied forces turned cities into hellacious landscapes.
Warsaw & Lublin
Kohn begins this chronicle with Warsaw – a city Nazis systematically destroyed. He writes, “Nazi policy was resolved to destroy Poland’s intellectual and cultural resources as well as the structure of its state.” Seventy-seven years later, in 2022, Poland formally demanded €1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany – a claim Germany flatly rejected.
But the bigger story in Kohn’s book is that of raw Polish resilience. As the Nazis retreated, Warsaw’s citizens rushed to rebuild. Architects like Stanisław Jankowski and Jan Zachwatowicz, once members of the resistance, became leaders of reconstruction. Their story captures the raw determination of a city that refused to die.
Kohn captures how Soviets who drove out Nazis left an indelible imprint on the Polish consciousness. Soviet influence created what he calls “Stalinist Poland,” an ethnically exclusive state.
Jews, Germans, and Ukrainians were driven out, sometimes violently. The Kielce Pogrom of 1946 terrorized Poland’s Jewish survivors, sending most into exile. Over 12 million Germans were expelled as well.
Reading this, you understand why Poland today is so wary of immigration: its post-war identity was deliberately engineered as Polish-only.
Kohn captures with finesse the clash between Polish preservationists and modernists. By 1956, a compromise emerged: the Old Town would be rebuilt to mirror its pre-war identity. In doing so, Warsaw earned the rare distinction of reconstructing its historic heart in both the exact shape and the enduring spirit of its former self.
Lublin’s old town, by contrast, suffered less physical damage but more demographic collapse. Once a thriving Jewish center, it became a ghost town after the Holocaust. Its revival owes much to groups like Teatr NN and Mandragora, which fought to keep Jewish memory alive. One haunting story Kohn shares: the blood libel fresco in Sandomierz Cathedral, a corrosive reminder of deep-rooted antisemitism.
Würzburg, Rothenburg & Frankfurt
Germany’s cities fared no better. The Allies bombed them relentlessly, not even sparing non-industrial towns. Kohn’s gory details of the firestorming of Würzburg with incendiary bombs raised an uneasy question in my mind: were the Allies justified or did their tactics mirror the moral depravity of the Nazis?
Reconstruction in Germany differed from Poland’s. There was no grand national project. Each city made its own choices. In Würzburg, pragmatism ruled, it was rebuilt with a blend of modernism and heritage. The result is a functional city that still honors its past.
Rothenburg ob der Tauber was luckier. Hitler loved the place and Allied bombers spared much of its medieval core. With its half-timbered houses intact, Rothenburg became a fantasyland. Kohn notes with irony that even Disney’s Pinocchio drew on Rothenburg’s streetscapes. Once a Nazi propaganda backdrop, the town reinvented itself as a romantic tourist magnet.
Frankfurt, on the other hand, leaned into modernism. Its old town was rebuilt with what Kohn calls “monumental indifference to history.” Only recently did the city attempt to reconnect with its roots via the Dom-Römer project, which recreated a new “old town.”
Vilnius
For me, the book’s most gripping section is Vilnius. In 1918, both Poland and Lithuania regained independence after centuries of subjugation. Soon thereafter, Poland annexed Polish-majority Vilnius (back then, known as Wilno) in 1922 in a puppet state called Central Lithuania. In 1939, Soviets took Vilnius from Poland as part of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and gifted it back to Lithuania before occupying the country themselves in 1940.
The old town of Vilnius was one of the few exceptions that survived the WW2 largely unscathed. Unlike other old towns, Vilnius did not undergo any major reconstruction. However, it did experience pogrom of its Jewish population. One infamous incident was Kaunas pogrom in which a Lithuanian military faction sided with Nazis and killed off a large part of the Jewish population.
One common theme across all the reconstructions was the removal of symbols tied to past occupiers and former populations. Vilnius was no different. Post-war Lithuania stripped away Polish traces, eager to fashion Vilnius into a Lithuanian capital. Architects even peeled Baroque facades to expose Gothic bricks, “proving” the city wasn’t Polish.
Prague
Kohn moves to Prague – the most middle city in Europe – in the later part of the book. Long before the WW2, Prague’s municipal corporation razed the Josefov Jewish quarter to ground to make way for the Art Noveau architecture.
After the war, planners across Europe leaned into open spaces. Historic landmarks were spared if they carried symbolic weight or didn’t obstruct progress. Slums were razed without remorse. When it comes to Jewish heritage, Kohn zeroes in on Prague’s Old Jewish Cemetery and how it became the center of the most diabolic antisemitic campaign ever.
Why This Book Matters
At 329 pages (plus a 45-page bibliography), The Stories Old Towns Tell is both dense and rewarding. Poland form its emotional core, nearly 130 pages are devoted to Warsaw, Lublin, Gdańsk and Kraków.
Of all reconstructions, Warsaw’s old town feels most authentic. Yet Kohn is careful: “authentic” is a slippery term. Frankfurt’s glossy Altstadt may jar against its neighbors, but it too is part of the story. Old towns, he reminds us, are always a work in progress. In the end, it doesn’t matter whether they’re reconstructed or original, what matters is that they keep transmitting memory.
A Personal Note
There are good books and then, there are the unputdownable ones. The latter etch themselves into your memory. You linger with them. You bring them up with your friends who don’t even read. And when you are done, you give them a place of honor on your bookshelf. For me, The Stories Old Towns Tell belongs firmly in that camp.
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