I'll explain the title first. "Promised Land" is a title of an 1899 novel (and a movie by Wajda based on the book) by Polish author and Nobel laureate Władysław Raymont. It tells a story of my city: Łódź as it was towards the end of the 19th century. Within 50 years it changed from a sleepy town of less than a thousand into a metropole of 232 000 people beaming with industry. What it also had was character, most of it lost due the the II World War. People in Łódź hardly ever called themselves Polish, they belong to the city they lived in, their Promised Land. They were Lodzermenschen.