With fortifications stretching back to the 17th century Slubice has a complicated history of sovereignty going back to the Holy Roman Empire. However, all is good nowadays with Slubice and neighbouring Frankfurt (Oder) sharing waste management systems, open borderless bridges, cross-border taxis, public transit, and schools mandating both German and Polish be taught to students. I loved how they two nations were able to integrate the two cities into one seamless community. It really makes me wonder if borders are necessary at all and supports the idea that cultures and people exist on a spectrum rather than possess hard definitions and boundaries.
While I was there, I stayed with a family that lives in Poland for the lower taxes and costs of living but works across the Oder in Germany for higher wages. Chen and I arrived by scooter, toured the area in bicycle, before heading back to Berlin on a 4-hour trip home the next day. We were quite lucky to be there otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to enter without a proper motorcycle license.
One of the most surprising things to any German would be the fact that the toilets in the outdoor bazaar in Slubice were free of charge. Obviously aimed at Germans by accepting Euros and speaking German, the bazaar offered everything from biscuits by the kilo to down jackets – all for cheap. Chen and I picked up a dozen Polish sausages, wait, no a dozen packets of Polish sausages, a kilo of cheese, a bag of preserved fish, and two boxes of cherry biscuits only to find that fitting it onto a scooter was not exactly easy.
Slubice has the world’s only Wikipedia monument as well as a historical fort in which I was told the Kaiser was once held. In more recent history, the Nazi Olympics in 1936 held an event here and the sports ground still exits as do the ruins of old German concrete bunkers that the allies later blew up.
