Textilana - A vanished city

The strange shape of the intersection and the unnatural air of the vast and open space in the center of the city is a hint that there was something big standing at this site. It was here, by the Harcovský Creek, where Johann Liebiegfounded his famous textile factory in the 19th century. It was mostly thanks to the factory that Liberec made the transition from a small town into a regional center. Liebig’s huge capitalist factory later became the socialist state-owned enterprise Textilana. It is symptomatic for Liberec that it has a dismissive attitude towards its own history and suffers heavily from memory loss. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why there’s virtually nothing left of the factory to which the city owes its present standing. The recollections of VlastaBergmanová bring back to life for at least a moment the once massive textile works that gave rise to the Liberec of the modern days. Testimony was gathered within the Living Memory of Liberec – Reichenberg project.