One Black Marble Plaque – Circa 1914
- At September 20, 2015
- By Heather
- In Poland
0
Dearest Old Bolds, Friends, and Family,
Yesterday morning before heading out, we drove down to the center of Lodz and were surprised to find a five-kilometer-long pedestrian boulevard lined by over-the-top 19th and early 20th century ornate buildings and villas. It is said to be the longest such shopping street in Europe, and built by the industrialists who became fabulously wealthy from the textile trade during the industrial revolution here. Each building strives to outdo the next, some dripping with plaster reliefs that would put a wedding cake to shame, others constructed out of a rare, red marble.
One had fire (gold)-breathing dragons on its façade.
We took a pedicab/rickshaw down the length of the street and back for twenty zlotys – about four Euros or five dollars, ate some breakfast pastries (all we could find for breakfast), and left for the countryside.
As in Breslau/Wroclaw – as soon as one leaves the main area of restoration, one passes street after street of crumbling, grey, decaying, formerly-glorious homes. Once the prominent inhabitants, with their know-how, drive, and business-friendly environment were killed en masse or driven out, the fabulous cities they created slowly withered. The question is, can the Poles stop exporting their best talent, and recreate at home the type of entrepreneurial culture that built these great cities in the first place? A great treasure of architectural and cultural history depends upon their success. For many of the structures, it may already be too late.
Although we only had about 50 kilometers to go, it took Charley and I almost two hours to drive to the small, neighboring villages where his father was grievously wounded in March 1915. The first one we entered had two cows staked, grazing in a circle, who were fascinated by our arrival. Trying to communicate with a local young man painting a fence proved unsuccessful. He pointed down the road, and then ignored us. Further down, we found a very old man sitting on a bench. I tried writing the year 1915 on a piece of paper, showing it to him, and miming war. He shooed the paper and us away.
Undeterred, we drove on to the second village, where there was a closed-up, old villa just barely visible in the distance through a locked gate along the road. Some middle-aged men were getting drunk in the middle of the town, and some old people walked slowly down the dirt pathways by the houses. At a small cluster of homes we found a mother with young children, and stopped, hoping she might speak English. I asked, do you speak English? Deutsch? She shook her head violently. Apparently she had never heard the words before, didn’t know what they meant. She came out to us with her children waving her arms. We were finally made to understand that we were sitting, with the car running, in front of their driveway, and so for some reason that we could not imagine in this bustling metropolis, population circa 57, were therefore causing them some great distress. Dozens of arms flapping, the woman and her children kept trying to shoo us away.
We did not come thousands of miles at great expense to simply be flapped away.
We handed them the paper with 1915 on it; I again tried to mime war. She had no idea what I was trying to convey. I looked to her like an idiot, and certainly felt the part for not having purchased and brought a Polish-English dictionary. Then the growing crowd of old people and children gathering around us thought we were looking for an address – that must be what 1915 meant. She tried to tell us there was no such address. When we said we did not understand Polish, she raised her voice and repeated herself, looking at us wide-eyed in frustration. When we still did not respond back in Polish, she repeated herself again, raising the volume to a veritable scream. The crowd became agitated, surrounding our car. My God, I thought, what on earth is happening here? I reached back into the back seat and found some papers I had printed out from the Internet with pictures of World War I soldiers. I handed them to her, she handed them around. There was murmuring, but no understanding. I used the Polish word for cemetery. Still, that brought us no further.
Finally, she said Engelsky, Engelsky? I nodded, yes, Amerikansky, Engelsky. At last she understood that we did not speak her language; we were foreigners. No one alive in the village could ever remember having had foreign visitors before, so it’s no wonder that it took a while for them to consider this possibility. She smiled and excitedly ran to get her small car, motioning for us to follow. We drove to the next village, where she parked in front of a farm, ran in, and came back leading a young lady who spoke English.
The young lady was able to explain the situation to us, and in turn translated our story and desire to find the battlefield. They decided together to consult an old man. He told them of a World War I cemetery in the fields, but that it had been destroyed. We told them that was ok, we would still like to go to it. It was decided an old man from the second village would take us there. We went back to our starting point, and he got in the back seat, pointing the way. When we got to the field, he indicated it was the stand of trees about 500 meters into the field. I looked for a dirt road and found none. Impatiently our guide pointed to the trees, and urged me to start driving towards them. So we started across the deep, soft earth, with our rental car’s sensors madly beeping pretty much all the way.
My prayer sounded something like this: Dear God, please do not let us get stuck in the middle of a Polish field. With only two elderly men onboard, miles away from the nearest farm, how on earth would I get it back out? Dear God, please do not let us get stuck in the middle of a Polish field. What would I tell the rental car company? Dear God…
We did make it to the mound in the field, and on top of it we found one black marble plaque, circa 1914, surrounded by the ubiquitous glass mourning candles on their sides and half-buried in the dirt. There were signs that some very recent digging into the sides of the mound had occurred – there is every reason to believe that hard cash is hard to come by here and perhaps someone thought valuables might still be available. Who, indeed, would care about those buried here 100 years ago?
Our guide, Jusef, took great care of Charley, giving him physical and emotional support. Although we could not speak to each other, his empathy and embraces were most touching, especially as he knew Charley was German and had fought in World War II. It was extremely emotional for Charley, as one might expect.
Jusef brought us back to his farm, where his wife and sister were sitting outside, enjoying the afternoon sun. They insisted that we sit at their table before leaving, and in order to avoid insult, we entered into their small kitchen/sleeping room, and were served tea and cake. Younger family members came and stared at us. Cows and geese were brought along the narrow road outside back to their barns as we watched. It seemed not much had changed here in several hundred years, although our friends had a washing machine, a great luxury.
Meanwhile, we ate, and ate, and ate. Unlike in Germany, where 2-3 helpings will normally suffice, here we were made to eat three pieces of cake and a puff pastry each, and were still encouraged to eat more.
We asked Jusef to write his name and address in our small notebook, and he handed it to his wife, who took ten painstaking minutes to pen the details. There was no telephone here, and when we gave her Charley’s telephone number, she motioned to our camera in question. It seems she had never seen a camera before, although surely a cell phone. When we took pictures of these adorable old folks, they thanked us over and over again.
Jusef’s wife, in turn, asked us to write our ages down on a piece of paper and then read them out to him. Jusef was 77. When she saw how old I was, she made a sound of great surprise and started stroking my face, not believing I could be as old as I say I am. This dear lady, whose name we never learned, would not join us at the table, nor tell us her age.
They made signs of offering us sleeping places in their home. We, in turn, said thank you, and motioned we had to leave to go to our hotel.
It was only when we had gone that it finally dawned on me.
Jusef may not have been able to read or write. Nor could perhaps the old man from the first village, who would not bother to look at our piece of paper.
Yet, despite their circumstances, these quiet and shy people offered closure to very old soldier, and then a very generous hospitality and sincere friendship that we will always remember with great fondness.
From the Pilica river with much love.
Real American
- At September 19, 2015
- By Heather
- In Poland, Veterans
0
Dearest Old Bolds, Friends and Family,
Our starting point today is Lodz (pronounced Woodszch in Polish).
There are three things that will help with orientation: One: Lodz is halfway between Breslau(Wroclaw) and Warsaw. Two: it was one of the most Jewish cities in Poland before World War II. And, three, wow, they really do eat pierogis here, just like in Chicago.
Poland is a country in transition. One gets the feeling that there is finally money flowing in, but that the investment in infrastructure here remains decades behind other central European countries like the Czech Republic or Hungary. Experience having lived in East Berlin after the wall fell is helpful to cope with some of the sights of 18th and 19th century building decay, but one also feels a despair here that was not present in Germany, where investment and renovation were taken for granted.
What I didn’t realize before coming was that Breslau was a magnificent, wealthy city with architecture rivaling that found in cities like Prague or Budapest. In 1945, when this part of Germany was given to the Poles, it didn’t seem like they really believed it would stay that way. So many of the buildings damaged by the fighting, and many that were still whole – those rich merchant homes, palaces and residences built by master builders over centuries – were pulled down, their stones and bricks sold and sent in trainloads to rebuild Warsaw. It’s like imagining that the heart of Vienna was ripped out, and its stones sold for cash. Every single German was forced out of Poland within a very short time, so anyone who had built, lived in, worked in, owned, or loved those buildings was gone. There was almost nothing to stop anyone desperate for cash (and there were many living on the brink of starvation after the war), from coming in and taking part in this destruction. On the footprint of these irreplaceable gems, truly awful cement apartment blocks were built, and, more recently, modern malls.
Eventually, the Poles realized that the history of this city could be its salvation. Now, the Renaissance, 19th century, and Art Deco buildings that previously lined one of largest marketplaces in Europe have been rebuilt or renovated, and painted pleasing pastel colors. But just one block behind the main square on all sides, crumbling, grey decrepitude on a Cuban-like scale extends for miles, interrupted only by modern glass and steel structures, and the occasionally renovated church or cultural icon, like the opera house.  The juxtaposition is extraordinary. And heartbreaking.
Standing in the middle of the square, you could feel the faintest pulse of the medieval, Hansa-league city. But you also feel waves of agony for what has been lost – the love of a people for, and connection to the century-old history of the city in which they live. How does one reconcile oneself with a city that was for centuries German when one is a Pole, given what happened in the 20th century, let alone love it or claim its history?
It is a question I cannot answer.
We left the city, and drove on a new, divided highway – two lanes each direction – that leads from Breslau/Wroclaw to Lodz. This road is so new it was neither in our GPS, nor on our maps. Given the heavy 18-wheeler traffic, we wondered how commerce functioned before its existence. Did these thousands of trucks previously drive on country roads through villages and never-ending stoplights on their way to Warsaw?
As we rolled deeper into Poland the number of cars sporting German license plates diminished. We are now the only ones we ever see. I thought about this a lot in advance, so I bought an American flag magnet, which I stick on the back by the license plate. But I’m not sure of the positive effect. Perhaps we look doubly rich.
When we arrived in the first of the towns mentioned in Charley’s father’s military papers, Zdunska Wola, we saw a sign for a history museum (Muzeum Historii), and decided to drop by. We walked in just as a local historian was finishing a presentation on the Holocaust and concentration camps. So the timing was a bit awkward.
Although the speaker coolly regarded us, everyone else was so nice, insisting we sit down and drink tea until they could find an English-speaker (here only some university-educated people, or those in the hotels, speak English. No one speaks German). A lively little old man came over and spoke to us in Polish, obviously asking me where I was from. When I said I was Amerikanska he danced around in glee, and repeated American, American, while miming a soldier holding a rifle up to shoot. When Charley said he was German, our new friend started reciting Plattdeutsch vocabulary – Plattdeutsch is the German dialect found around Hamburg. We were delighted. He was pulled away by a young girl family member as our translator arrived, but before he left, he asked if I were a real American.
Yes, I answered. I am a real American. Really real. He turned his head to the side? I nodded vigorously.
This caused him to beam and dance again in delight. It’s by far the best welcome I’ve ever had based on my nationality outside of Sweden (but that’s another story for another time).
Although not much was known about the battles that took place here in World War I, we asked if there were any military cemeteries around, hoping they might give us a clue as to the units that fought in a particular area. A young historian was assigned to take us to two cemeteries, quite a ways out of town.
As the sun dipped low, we parked in the woods, walked along the busy road, and through a deep ditch, and finally arrived at a sad, dilapidated cemetery for perhaps 30 Germans killed in the battle here at the end of November, 1914.
The first grave we saw contained the bodies of men in Charley’s father’s unit.
And so what we were not able to determine in the archives, we found, by the grace of God, on the ground.
If this is all we find, it will be enough.
But of course, we will push on, towards the Vistula.