Wrocław Dwarfs

The Prisoner, one of Wrocław's bronze dwarfs, gripping the window bars of the old municipal jail on Więzienna Street with a ball and chain still on his ankle. He is one of hundreds of pint-size dwarfs hidden around the city, each with a job, a joke or a sulk of his own. The joke started as protest. In the 1980s the Orange Alternative movement painted grinning dwarfs over the patches where the authorities had covered anti-government slogans, and on June 1, 1988, thousands marched in orange hats demanding freedom for the dwarfs. The bronze ones followed, and hunting them is now the city's favorite pastime for visitors.