Wertheim department store

The department store was built by the Wertheim Group from 1928 to 1930 according to plans by architect Hermann Dernburg on Schweidnitzer Stra e and on Tauentzienplatz. It had the first escalators in Silesia and was considered the largest department store in the city. In the course of Germany-wide aryanization, the National Socialists broke up the company in 1937. Most members of the Wertheim family fled to the USA. The department store passed into the hands of the Allgemeine Warenhaus Gesellschaft (AWG). During the Battle of Wrocław in 1945, the interior of the building was burnt out, although the façade and steel structure were preserved.

The department store was reopened in 1948 for the „Exhibition of the Regained Territories“ as the „General Department Store“ (Polish Powszechny Dom Towarow, or PeDeT for short). The first floor housed a grocery store. Later, the Polish newspaper Słowo polskie held a competition to rename the department store. The department store was then given its current name Renoma. The department store, which was listed as a historical monument in 1977, was privatized in the late 1990s and modernized and rebuilt between 1998 and 1999.

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