There's Just Something About Mary

Walk through any town in Poland for ten minutes and you will find at least one of these iconic shrines to the Virgin Mary. A shrine or grotto built to venerate the Catholic Church's most worshiped saint can be found on many street corners, next to churches or even in national parks throughout the country.   

A grotto next to a small river in the Chocholuw Valley nearby the Tatra Mountains resort town of Zakopane.

This one is located in what looks like an abandoned lot on one of the main streets leading to the bus station in Zakopane. Southern Poland is considered to be more deeply religious than the north, and the town even has a chapel financed and built by local citizens as an offering of thanksgiving when the late Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in 1981.

This alcove is on a street corner in the old Praga district of Warsaw, adjacent to a newly restored vodka factory-turned art facility that currently houses the Praga History Museum. I think that these shrines are quite beautiful, and wonder who takes the time to so carefully maintain them?

Searching for pre-war architecture in Warsaw

A little over a month ago I was in Warsaw visiting my relatives on my mother's side. I've been making pretty regular trips to Poland over the last several years, at least since I've been living in Eastern Europe. I wrote about my visits during my first year as an ETA in Pleven, again that summer as well as during the fall of my second year. Over the course of these visits I have become more and more interested in my family history. And this time I got to do a little more research on putting together the puzzle pieces of that story.

My Polish grandfather was born in 1909 in a small town in the south called Częstochowa, most famous for its shrine to the Virgin Mary which is believed to have saved Poland from Swedish invasion in the 17th century. We don't know much about his life there because the family moved to Warsaw when he was still a young man. His father was an auto mechanic, I imagine a lucrative profession in the first decade of the 1900s. Back then Poland was still partitioned into three sections by the Prussian, Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. My great-grandfather used to travel to Russia often on business, but mysteriously disappeared on a trip there in 1914 at the onset of the First World War. His family never heard from him again and he was presumed dead, leaving his wife with four children to look after. After the war ended Poland was re-unified and became an independent country, but this was to be short-lived; in just over twenty years Nazi Germany would invade Poland and set off the beginning of World War II. At some point between the wars my grandfather's family moved to Warsaw, where they lived in an apartment on Puławska Street. I found the address on my great-grandmother's German identification document issued under Nazi occupation and while I was last in Warsaw my aunt and cousin took me to visit the building. We weren't even sure if it would still be there, but it was!

The exterior wasn't very remarkable (although it did have a fresh coat of paint, something lacking in most of the older Warsaw buildings outside of Old Town or New Town) and the ground floor on one side is currently occupied by a supermarket chain and a gym. One surprising detail was that there is a pharmacy which has been standing there since 1930. They even have a display case full of antique medical equipment. Going inside of the inner courtyard, however, was the biggest highlight. Tall, cream-colored walls surrounding curved balconies with wrought-iron railings and an open patio decorated with bright red geraniums awaited our discovery. Although I don't know the floor or apartment number where my family lived (or if the building has ever been remodeled or changed) it was still an exhilarating experience to stand there and imagine my grandfather walking into that building every day as a university student. 

After finishing his degree as a mechanical engineer at the Politechnical University, my grandfather enlisted in the air force. Just a few years later he would become one of thousands of Polish airmen who fled occupied Poland to the United Kingdom, where they were incorporated into the Royal Air Force as a separate Polish division. I recently came across military archives from his service there and found out that my grandfather was promoted twice and awarded the Polish silver cross medal of valor. Due to political reasons he was never able to return to Poland permanently after the war. I also know that he didn't like talking about what had happened; it must have been difficult leaving his life and family behind. His mother actually died on Victory Day in 1945 without knowing the fate of any of her four children (one son had been arrested as a prisoner of war and summarily executed, another had joined the Warsaw underground resistance army and her daughter was also working with the underground). There are so many stories from that turbulent time that have probably been forgotten, but as I put together details and facts that I come across it makes me feel like I'm making our family story more complete. 

On a related note, I also visited a former vodka factory that was recently converted into art galleries and loft space. It's located on the right bank of the Vistula River in the Praga District, one of the least damaged areas of the city after its destruction at the end of the war. You can still find old brick buildings left standing from the 18th and 19th centuries there, a rarity in a city that was made 90% rubble just over 60 years ago. The outside walls are covered in colorful graffiti, and inside the main building is a temporary exhibition of old photos from Praga before the war. The Museum of Praga is temporarily located in the old Koneser factory until the original building (formerly a Synagogue) reopens after restoration.  

Summer Update

A lot has happened in the past month or so. A lot of months have been like that over the last couple of years, in fact, but July 2012 was a particularly intense exception. I finished my last day as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at the end of June, attended the farewell party for U.S. Fulbrighters and Bulgarian Fulbrighters who are going to study in the States next year, and I left for Poland to visit my family in Warsaw for three weeks.

Staying with my relatives is always a relaxing experience (lots of reading, picnics and swimming in the river by their summer cottage), and once again I took a trip with my cousin to a new destination in Poland. Last year it was the Baltic coastal city of Gdansk, but this time we headed south for the Tatra mountain resort town of Zakopane. While there I managed to check my email only rarely, but I did receive some startling and exciting news about my project, ""Learning Through Our Differences" (working title). Several months ago I applied for a grant from the Open Society Institute, who agreed to fund my project!!! So I'm working hard on that (more updates to come).

I hope that everyone is having a sunny and restful summer! 

All Saints Day in Poland

I am in Warsaw this week, visiting my aunts and cousin. I also have a couple of friends living in Poland now, so it's good to go visit and catch up with them, too. I was also here at the same time last year (the last weekend in October always includes a four-day weekend in Bulgaria so I took advantage of some extra time off to take a "fall break" from school). I can say with absolute certainty that Halloween is definitely not a big deal in this country. Besides a few displays in cafes and shops, and a couple of posters advertising parties in Warsaw, I didn't notice much going on to celebrate the holiday. Which makes sense. It isn't something which has a tradition here, unlike in the States where we spend so much time and money on costumes, trick-or-treating and decorating our homes. However, the origins of Halloween (or All Hallow's Eve) are very closely linked to an important holiday in the Polish calendar: All Saints Day, celebrated on November 1st.

This is a public holiday, and most Poles visit the cemeteries to pay their respects to deceased loved ones. I was interested in the custom, so I went with my family to Powązki Cemetery, where my great-uncle Aleksander and his first wife are buried. The first thing I noticed about this holiday is how well-organized it is. Special bus routes are added to service the cemeteries in Warsaw, and transportation workers are available to direct passengers and traffic. We went relatively early in the day, but the crowds got worse as late morning arrived. Outside of the cemetery gates were vendors selling candles, tissues, flower arrangements, wreaths, and all kinds of candy and snacks. There were television crews set up outside the main entrance (being the most famous cemetery in the city, it is the final resting place of many well-known actors, musicians, writers and politicians). It's basically the Père Lachaise of Warsaw. More recently, is became the location for a somber memorial to the victims of the April 2010 plane crash which killed nearly a hundred people, including many prominent members of the government, the president and his wife. The memorial is made from two "wings" split in the middle and flanked on either side with the graves of some of the victims of the crash. On Tuesday there were many visitors to the site, leaving candles, photos and flowers in memory of the tragedy. The aftermath of the crash has had all kinds of repercussions for the direction of Polish politics, especially in the growing rise of more radically conservative nationalism. But on this day, people came to remember the individuals who lost their lives, along with loved ones. The whole day seemed more cathartic than depressing, because so many people came to perform these rituals, and then continued on with their lives. It also pointed out one of the major contentious issues of contemporary Polish society: the role of the Catholic Church in public life. While this institutionalized "day of remembrance" serves as a (probably) necessary outlet for grief, the teleological role of religion is also narrowing the possibilities for a plurality of identity within Poland. It's clear that this is already a divisive subject, not only between religious and secular groups but within the church itself. 


This is definitely something more to ponder than just jack-o-lanterns and costumes! 

Polish breakfasts will be the end of me…

This was my sixth trip to Poland in the last five years, which sounds like a lot! I definitely feel a lot more familiar now there and I am trying to make a plan to find work or study for a couple of years in Warsaw. Having family there helps a lot, and I’ve slowly been learning a little bit of Polish. Apparently, my pronunciation is good- my aunt keeps telling me I have a natural ear for the language. I’m not so sure, but I can read with relative accuracy, count to ten, and I know the names for every meal (very important). My aunt always prepares a lot of delicious food when I visit, and it’s hard to turn down, but I worry about all the pork, potatoes and sweets that are the staples of my diet here. Luckily their apartment is right by Lazienki Park, the biggest one in the city and a beautiful place to go jogging.   

When my cousin Andrzej found out I would be visiting for a longer time he started planning a trip for us to the Baltic coast, which was great because I’d wanted to see Gdansk for years. We took the long train ride to the sea and spent two nights there, also visiting the seaside resort town of Sopot. Gdansk (Danzig in German) has a very interesting history, as it functioned as an independent city up until the Second World War. The architecture is striking, and reminded me of both Amsterdam and Prague. Its position on the Baltic Sea made it into an important center for trade and shipbuilding, and before the war the majority of its residents were German-speaking merchants. On September 1, 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland, an event which officially started the war. The first shots were fired at Westerplatte, the Polish naval base next to Gdansk. On a ferry trip to Sopot we passed by the memorial dedicated to the lives lost that day which stands on the small peninsula there. Gdansk was also where the Solidarity labor movement was born in the 1980s at the Lenin Shipyards. Solidarity leaders organized a mass strike there against the totalitarian government and formed the first independent labor union in the Soviet bloc. It was instrumental in the downfall of the communist system; one leader, Lech Walesa, became Poland’s first democratically elected president in over fifty years in 1990. Today you can visit the shipyards (which have been renamed) on a tour to learn more about their history and role in the Polish economy and political consciousness. Unfortunately, the English interpreter on our tour didn’t translate everything the guide said, so you’re better off if you speak Polish. There is another exhibition located outside the shipyards called “Roads to Freedom,” which is more of a museum to life under communism and martial law in Poland. Because the Solidarity movement was the subject of a major paper for me in college, it was very satisfying to see these places in real life.

The rest of the trip was spent lazing about by the Baltic Sea, drinking Polish beer and sampling delicacies such as pickled herring with cream and white kielbasa. We also met a German man at our bed-and-breakfast who was on a cycling trip across Poland, and had some very interesting conversations with him (imagine a Pole, a German and an American discussing the legacy of WWII or the future of social welfare in Europe and the United States).  I also appreciated having more time to talk with my cousin over the course of the trip, and I’m sure that we know each other much better having spent a few days together. I feel very lucky to have my family here, and to have had so many opportunities to see them over the years. As I learn more about my grandparents’ life during and after the war I am increasingly aware of all the risks they took, and I wonder at all the ways things could have turned out differently for them (and, by extension, me). And learning more about my family here makes me proud to be a part of their life and very happy to have them in mine.

As I pack up to leave Poland (I know it won’t be the last time) I can’t believe how much has happened this year. The first day I arrived in Sofia seems like such a long time ago but it was less than a year before now. Adjusting to life on my own wasn’t always easy, but it was a very rewarding experience and I feel that I’ve grown a lot personally. I’m looking forward to going home, seeing my family and friends, and catching up on all that I’ve missed since I’ve been away. And hopefully new adventures await me next year!