Visiting Graves in Wroclaw

Some of you might be researching your genealogy and having a difficult time.  If it's because you are having difficulty locating which city or town your ancestor was buried, or their date of birth and death, that can really cause issues tracing them in the records department.

The digital age is beginning to make things easier in many aspects of life.

Including, finding family graves.  Wroclaw now has the graves of each cemetery online.  On the website for Zarząd Cmentarzy Komunalnych we Wrocławiu (or ZCK), you can go to the tab "Wyszukiwarka Grobów" (Search for Graves).

In the field marked "Nazwisko", put in your ancestor's last name. 

Remember, if you are looking for a female family member, it's highly probably that their last name ends with the feminine "a", instead of the masculine or group "i".

In the field marked "Imię", put in their last name.  Or, you can leave that blank.

"Data urodzenia" means "Date of Birth".  "Data zgonu" literally means "Date of Loss" but actually means "Date of Death".  "Data pochowania" means "Date of Burial".  You don't really actually need any of these dates, if you don't have them.  Simply enter what you have.

Results will show the person's name, all three dates explained above, which cemetery in Wroclaw they are buried in, which plot, group and row.

The database is not yet complete, so don't be discouraged.  The office of the ZCK is also staffed with (Polish speaking) people who are very professional and very helpful, as well.  But, I cannot stress this enough, they are not there to help you with your genealogy research.  They are there to care for the graves of our dearly departed.  Which includes helping us find their graves so that we can visit.

If you find a family grave in their database, you can call the ZCK to check that their account is up to date, which would mean you have family around there as well.  If not, would you do an act of kindness to your departed ancestors, and kindly pay for their continued care in their final resting place.

This is not intended to be for genealogical purposes, but rather, for people to find their family's grave in order to visit.  It's helpful for me, since my Babcia is the one who knows where our family is buried there and her memory is slipping.  I visit the graves whenever I am in Wroclaw, but eventually, I will be visiting on my own.  And then, one day, my children's children will be visiting.

The information on this site cannot be used as part of "proof of citizenship" documentation. 

Other places around Poland will soon be having sites like this for people to find their families graves, as well.

When that happens, I'll be able to find and visit the graves on my mother's side, since as of right now, nobody I have contact with knows that information.

Na razie...




Note:  Traditional Polish lanterns for use on All Saints' Day can be purchased at dom itp.

Disclaimer: An affiliate sale link is used in this post for those looking to purchase lanterns as is traditionally used on this holiday.




Related Posts:

Understanding Flower Traditions in Poland

Calling Babcia

It Isn't Just Another Day, It's All Saints' Day

A Cemetery in a Small Village in the Polish Countryside and WWII

Letter To Heaven: Dear Dziadek, a Letter to My Father's Deceased Father

When Memory Revisits My Babcia

When Memory Revisits My Babcia

I'm not sure what triggered my Babcia a few days ago on the phone.  But, suddenly, she recalled her parents full names.  And where they were from.  And when they left Poland.  And so much more.

My Babcia's mother was from Grodno when it was still Poland.  Now, Grodno falls in Belarus.

My Babcia's father was from the Bialystok area, and she told me the name of the town.

They both left Poland before World War I and fled to France, where they met in a small village.  My Wujek remembered the name of the village and what my pra-Dziadek used to do there.

My Babcia was born in France in the interwar era.  After WWII, they returned to Poland to Wroclaw.  Where she met my Dziadek.  And had my Tato, who had me.

I found other people while looking online that lived in those towns with the same last names around the 1850's through the beginning of WWII.

When Alzheimer's veils the memory, it's subtle but keeps claiming more and more.

I'm planning on writing down as much as possible of my family history so that when it happens to me, my children's children won't be left wondering what stories were lost to them.

Na razie...

Our Life Changing Anniversary

It was evening.  The children were fed, bathed and playing together by me as I sat on my bed sorting paperwork.

My Tato came in.  He never really comes into my room.  My house is always open to him because that is just how Polish children are, their house is always open to their parents.

I looked at him, knowing he was going to say something important.

"Gęś*, do you know what Eleven ten eleven is?" with a smile that I know very well.  A smile that means "Guess, maybe you know, this is something very special to me."

I raked my mind.  It is noone's birthday as far as I can remember.  It isn't our anniversary coming to Amerika. 

"I don't know, Tato.  I know it's the day before Veteran's Day and the day before Poland's Independence Day and before eleven eleven eleven."

"On November 10, 2011, it will be 30 years ago we left Poland."

My Tato rarely talks about Poland and our departure.  I have begged him for years to share with me but I have been lucky to get slivers.

I paused and bit the bullet.  I asked questions.  Cautiously, because I know he might shut down his wall that he keeps to protect himself.  I can understand that feeling, even though my feelings are from a different perspective and most likely not as strong and full of memories as his and my Mamas.

"Tato, how did we leave?"

"You were just a little thing (stress on little).  You was not even 1 1/2 year old.  I drove us in a car to Austria."

I knew this much.  I wanted more.

"But how?  Did we sneak over in the night (like on those old spy movies)?  How did we get through the border?"

"No, we said we were going on vacation."  More gentle prying and I hear, "We each got passports to go separately when we apply to go to Austria for vacation.  You Dziadek went with us to take car back.  We just did not return."

We left on different pretenses than what we told the government.  In my mind, I think now about people who overstay their visas and wonder if they were in the same situation and if it is so wrong what they did.  And that people who judge them without ever having traveled anywhere have no idea, no clue.

My Tato continued to tell me how little I was and that we lived in Warth. 

I asked him if he regretted it.  Because I am ashamed to think (but would never tell him) that in some ways, I do.  He told me that in some ways he regrets it but in many ways no.  I knew I hit a nerve.  This was hard to him to talk about.

I cannot imagine being in a situation where no matter how hard you work, there is no food in the stores to feed your baby, there is no future that you can see for your child.  Having to hug your parents goodbye, cross yourself and sneak away to another country.  And hope beyond hope that you don't get sent back home, that you and your family are given a chance to try to make a life for yourselves in another country far far away with a different language, culture, government, values, food with no family to be your support there.

I cannot imagine how my parents found the strength to leave their Poland.

30 years ago today, my parents made the biggest decision of their lives and mine.

They hugged their friends and family, said goodbye, not knowing if they would see them again.  My parents wrapped me in a green blanket and my mother sat with me in the backseat of a maluszek that had no heat on a cold November day.  My Dziadek sat in the passengar seat.  And my Tato drove.

For our future.  To our future.

This weekend, besides celebrating Veterans Day and Poland's Independence Day, I will be showing my children photos from my family, calling my Babcia, and telling my children our story.

I wonder what will be, to my children, the biggest decision in their lives that my husband and I will make.  Will it be, as I see it something as small and trivial, as moving to Illinois from Maryland?  Or will it be something just as big?

Na razie...



*  Gęś (pronounced Gensh and meaning "goose" in Polish, my father's nickname for me)

Related Posts:  Writing Me:  Where I'm From
The Other Side of The Immigrant Question

The Love Story

My mother was about 17 or 18 years old living in Poland. 

She and her best friend decided to go to Paris, France for a vacation. 

Because of Poland's prime location in the center of Europe, my entire family has always been able to enjoy countless vacations in the Alps, Paris, Barcelona, London and countless other European locations that are far far out of my reach and always will be.

The two inseparable friends took a train over the borders and made their way to the City of Lights.  They strolled along thestreets of Paris, enjoyed coffee and cigarettes while people watching at Paris's numerous cafes, saw the Notre Dame and basked in the romance that is Paris.

One day, my mother's best friend met a Parisian.  He was suave, dark, macho, handsome, very French and proud of it. 

He swept my mother's best friend off her feet with his romantic gestures and words spoken in his french accent.

When it came time to leave Paris and return home to Wroclaw, my mother's best friend gave her this ring.

It was to remember her.

She would be staying in Paris to marry her handsome Frenchman.

Her name was Kasia.

Writing Me: Where I'm From

I wish that idea was simple and easy to explain.  I wish I could say I knew.

I'm from a flow of events out of my control before even my parents were born.  I'm from consequences to other peoples actions.  I'm from change.  A constant change.

I'm from a city that somehow my grandparents ended up in, relocated along with millions of others.  Locations bombed, taken, reclaimed by others.  A new home "given" by the government, bought.  Bloc apartments.  Bedrooms as small as my husband's family's closets, it could be said.


I'm from two people still young and from different backgrounds. Who fell in love and married on the spur of the moment.

One from a small village, 7 siblings, my Dziadek an alcoholic, the family history a mystery partly because when asked they always say they are from another larger town nearby, sun kissed blonde hair and green eyes the color of the Pole, red leather boots, mountain climbing, running through the farmers' fields, a dream at better in Wroclaw, the large city nearby.

And one from a career Army family, some members lost in WWI, and later in Katyn, others lost in Siberia, concentration camps, and other battles fighting for their beloved Polska.  Legends of the family originating from Warsaw (true from what I have found) and possibly from Polish knights.  Uniforms, mustaches, thick leather Army belts, tall, strong, dark hair, piercing blue eyes, athletic, intelligent, introverted.  The same eyes my brother has, the same distinctly Polish eye shape I have and my children have, their piercing blue changing to the color of the Pole in the middle of summer. 

Somehow, those two meeting, falling in love, marrying too quickly, then making Kasia.  Me.

I'm from homemade sun bonnets, prams instead of strollers, handknit sweaters, a white christening blanket still hanging in my closet, daily walks outside along an ancestral river filled with trout and boats and relics of the past, sitting on park benches under the shade of willows.

I'm from where everyone knows how to say my name, where my parents don't have an accent, from red poppies, flowers planted everywhere possible, and Linden trees, hazelnuts, red capped mushrooms, Krasnoludki, willows and buckwheat and cabbage and castles.  Cathedrals, true cathedrals built with the blood, sweat and tears of workers long past centuries before, Matka Boska, Czarna Madonna hanging in many a living room, Joh Paul II, prayers deep heartfelt prayers whispered century after century in my native tongue.


I'm from moments in time.  Orange hats of the "Krasnoludki" quietly protesting Communism in a way to avoid bloodshed.  Monuments later to be built to commemorate these holy places where students and workers gave their lives hoping for human rights.  Rights which were taken away in WWII and not yet handed back by Moscow, to the victor go the spoils.  And the spoils were countries like Poland.

I'm from long food lines, empty store shelves bare except for a bag of rotten potatoes, hungry people, toilet paper bought on the black market because the Communist government controlled the supply of goods for purchasing. And failed at it.


Taken...

Over a mountain, the dead of night, winter, no heat in the Malusek, a green blanket wrapped around me, prayers that we don't get caught sneaking over the border.  Away.  Running away.  Because there was no food to feed me with.  Because my parents wanted a future for me.  Always remembering this and feeling like I let them down, that I should have done more with my life.

A card with a young girl's picture and the words "Citizen of the World".


Potato soup, a hostel in Austria, nobody telling me what happened there.  My hand burned severely. Scarred permanently.


A choice.  Australia or Baltimore, USA.  My parents choosing Baltimore.  An airplane flight that almost didn't happen because my mother was so far in her pregnancy with my brother.  Nobody at the airport to meet us like they were supposed to.  Nobody telling me what happened after.

Questions.  Questions.  Details that I will never learn. 


I'm from public school, ESL classes, hand-me-down clothes and furniture, never being allowed to not finish dinner because we knew all too well what being hungry meant.


I'm from a moment of our first car accident in Amerika.  My Babcia screaming and pulling my brother's and my head against her chest to protect us.  My crying because she smothered me.  Being scared.  Sitting on a curb and a firefighter coming to me asking me questions I didn't understand and a brown blanket around my shoulders.  My parents and Babcia and brother all shaken but alive.  It wasn't our fault and I was very young but I drive very carefully because of that memory.

I'm from hope.  I'm from dreams.  I'm from the desperate desire by humankind to want to continue and keep trying.


I'm from a feeling that I don't belong.  From a knowing that I don't belong.  And that I can't change it.  And laughing quietly at people's assumptions of others based on appearance, race, religion, etc. 


I'm from long conversations around the dinner table, any time of day or night.  My parents gently directing my train of thought and understanding of the world.  Allowing me to learn about other countries, other religions, other peoples. 


I'm from always wondering why my parents were so hard on me and treated my brother differently.  "You are going to grow up to be a woman.  This is a man's world.  It's not fair but that's how it is.  It will be easier for your brother than it will be for you.  One day you will understand."  Being jealous of my brother and being told to cherish him because in this world and because of what we had been through, he was all I had.  Now understanding it all.


I'm from fork in the left hand, knife in the right.  Floors washed by hand.  Wooden spoons.  The color red.  Flowers overfilling our balcony.  Crochet.  Cross stitching.  Knitting.  Embroidery. 


A father who was constantly at work because "I work for you and your brother to have future.  That is man's job.  Woman's job to spend time with kids, cook, clean, play games with kids.  Man make money to pay for these things.  One day you understand."  And they were right.  Always right.  It's "one day" now and I understand.


I'm from hearing the words "Solidarnosc", "Wojtyła", Walesa", "Sovieczi", "Wojna", "komunistów", "Syberia", "Katyn" and countless others whispered by adults and never being told what it all meant.  Watching tv about some guy with a mustache like my fathers and a huge pen signing papers, Pope John Paul II, the Berlin wall coming down.  My parents crying.  My and my brother not understanding.  My mother hugging us one time and saying "Dzieki boza ze nie rozumiecze".  Phone calls to Poland that cost over $100 for just a half hour but phone calls made anyway. 


I'm from the smell of raw potatoes being prepared for who knows what, cabbage, spinach in sandwiches, cucumbers, radishes, currants, gooseberries, sour cream.  A mother scouring through cookbooks to try and create as many different dishes for us as possible.  So that we grow up adventurous eaters.  From dinners built on a theme of a particular country and my mother telling us about that country as we ate.


I'm from hugging my Babcia hello nervously because I didn't know her and I should have.  Hugging her goodbye 6 months later when her time came to leave and praying that I could spend all the time in the world with her.  Thinking how unfair life was that my family was so far away.  Not a few miles away.  Over an ocean and behind an iron curtain away.


I'm from snuggles under a blanket in my parent's bed, watching Rick Steves travel the world and telling my mother that one day I would do the same thing.  That I would see the world.  That knowing my neighborhood would not be enough.  Because I had already seen more.  And had a hunger for more.


I'm from countless reminders by my parents that children are the most important thing in the world and that even though they were more strict than most Amerikan parents, they loved me very much and didn't want me to get hurt.  And myself turning into the same kind of parent.


I'm from operas, Jean Michel Jarre, Czerwone Gitary, Iron Maiden, Swan Lake, music from all over the world.  My parents telling me that music should move you to feel, no matter what language it is in and what language you speak.  But not rap.  Because my parents didn't agree with lyrics that disrespect women or talk about violence.  That they wanted me to feel inspiration in music.  A living room designed by my father, wired specially, a bass speaker he created, Scorpions "Winds of Change" bouncing off your heart and shaking the windows and us sitting feeling those words and knowing that we were here because of those winds.

I'm from countless dates with boys but never feeling they measured up.  Knowing I wanted someone who was tolerant, not bigoted, who wanted to travel, who saw me as beautiful.  A date with a boy who's family was Polish American, who had money, but who thought men could sleep around while women should be chaste.  And knowing my mother's feminist words, saying "We can't date.  I want someone who sees me as his equal."


Meeting my future husband an hour later, my heart stopping.  Blue eyes looking back at me.  Who thinks that my being Polish and speaking another language was sexy.  Who steals my breathe away just by being him.  Who kissed me an hour later and.  Time stopped.  My friends of several years standing there and one saying "Wow.  Dude, time stopped.  What the h--- was that?!"  And knowing he was the man for me.

I'm from a place where people read poetry, curse, eat Chesapeake crabs, Georgia peaches just a few hours away, Maryland tomatoes, Old Bay on anything and everything, a "girls night out" in a local Dundalk bar, or Canton or Fells Point and my always wanting it in Canton.  From Polish festivals in Patterson Park, my parents always driving by our first home in America, formstone and marble steps row home. 

I'm from walks in the woods with my mother, learning what berries are edible, what berries make nice necklaces, what flowers grow when, what do foxes look like. 


I'm from strolls in Historic Ellicott City, mass in Holy Cross PNCC, camping in West Virginia, knowing Gettysburg, Antietam, Harpers Ferry, Havre de Grace, Jerusalem Mills and countless other historic sites like the back of my hand.

I'm from hikes that last hours and hours.  Jogging under trees in the woods.  Knowing always to look out for copperheads.  From walking with my head slightly down to watch what I might step on in the outdoors.


I'm from the smell of the ocean.  Fields and fields of cows, corn, and soybean.

I'm from countless days of picking my own vegetables and fruits at Huber's Farm.  Knowing the family and their fields and the harvest.

I'm from change.


And now I'm here.  Wide blue skies.  Wheat fields.  Skunks.  Black squirrels.  Wild flowers and fossils everywhere.  So many butterflies that a hike entails at least two smacking against my face each time.  Coyotes.  The Revolutionary War far far away from me.  Pumpkin fields orange as far as the eye can see.  Beefalo.  Less evidence of the Native Americans who roamed here than I'm used to.  Trying to find my new place.

Knowing I will.  Because I have done this before.



Inspired by Bigger Picture Moments "Writing Me:  Where I'm From"

My Babcia on Volunteering and Children

I called my Babcia yesterday.  During the usual questions she asked me, she found out that I am a lunchroom mom again this year like last year.

I found out what she thought of volunteering at school.  That it was every parents responsibility to help at school in some way.  That children's education does not and cannot fall squarely on the shoulders of teachers. 

My Babcia told me that she volunteered every week at my father and Wujek's school, even when they were in Teknologia (Technology school which some students did instead of high school, the education system in Poland is entirely different from the US education system, with students beginning work skills training at a younger age and for a longer time into college). 

My Babcia often helped the teacher with writing the papers, after all, this was before computers, before printers.  Hand outs, paperwork had to be typed and written each piece at a time.

My Babcia worked full time all this time, made home cooked meals every single day, went to church every single Sunday, had a small garden that she tended and used to grow much of my family's food.

My father and Wujek were clothe diapered at a time when all children were in clothe diapers, when clothing was washed either by hand or using machines which were essentially tubs that were handfilled with water from the tap and had a "wrangler" on the top.  Machines that had to be emptied by hand.  My Babcia did all this and made her own baby food because that was just what you did.


I have to add that my Babcia fled Poland to France at the start of WWII, then came to America, not to return to Poland until the war was over.  She then met my Dziadek, married, and had two children which were raised under the USSR's rule and Communism.  Poland was a burned shell of what she had left and had to slowly be rebuilt.  Food lines were common.  Store shelves bare of food were a common sight.

My Babcia told me she was proud of me because perhaps my presence at the schools will inspire other parents.  And perhaps I can be an inspiration to some child there who perhaps isn't as fortunate as my daughters, this in my Babcia's words translated to English.

My Babcia then went on to tell me that she was finally working on throwing away old cans of food that she had made over the years.  So much food had she carefully cultivated in her garden, harvested, brought home on the bus, washed and canned.  And placed under her bed because there was no room for a pantry in her apartment.

All to be thrown away because now they were old and she was all alone and couldn't eat it all.

I wanted to be there with her to help her.  But I can't.  I am here instead.

We ended our conversation after a while with the same professions of love that always end our conversations.  A reminder from her that I am the first grandchild.  A reminder to her that she was my first and most beloved Babcia and that I would always remember that she was the one who brought me home from the hospital. 

My telling her that I prayed that the old house would soon sell so that we could come see her again and her saying that she would pray for that also very much because she really missed us. 

Wishes for colorful dreams. 

Love all the way to Heaven. 

Buska Buska Buska Pa.

I can't help but draw inspiration from her.  And hope that I can see her again.  Soon.

Na razie...



Other Posts:

Calling Babcia

The Dolls I Left Behind

Wordless Wednesday: Another Old Postcard from My Past, A Castle

On the back of the old postcard are written the following:

"Zamek Ksiaz k. Walbrzycha
Monumentalny zamek piatowski wzniesiony
w XII w przez Bolka I-szego, kilkakrotnie
przebudowywany, Obecnie czesciowo
udostepniony zwiedzajacym

fot. T. Drankowski"



"Wydawca: POLSKIE TOWARZYSTWO
URYSTYCZNO-KRAJOZNAWCZE"



"ZAKLAD PRODUKCYJNY PTTK WE WROCLAWIU
Wszelkie prawa zastrzezone"



Someone once on my mother's side said that we were related to the people who once owned this castle but whether that is true or not, I don't know and I'm not sure I would believe we were.  There are lots of legends on that side of my family about where they came from. 

On my father's side, they don't tell me because it requires talking about WWII (and because my father's family is a military family with a long history of service, I'm sure there are a lot of tragic stories of lives lost fighting for our beloved Polska).

It can't hurt to tell my daughters that they are Polish princesses, and if they need proof, show them this photo and say the same thing I was told, right?  Every little girl needs to believe in fairy tales and this place, to me, looks like it is from a prawdziwa Bajka (real fairy tale).



Some links about this place (in Polish):

http://www.zamkipolskie.com/ksiaz/ksiaz.html

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksi%C4%85%C5%BC

http://www.polskiekrajobrazy.pl/Galerie/368:Dolny_Slask/17148:Zamek_Ksiaz_kolo_Walbrzycha.html

Wordless Wednesday: The Dolls I Left Behind

On my last trip back to Poland to bury my Dziadek, my Babcia gave me something that struck me more than anything else about my childhood and also our exodus from Poland.

The two dolls I left behind when we left Poland. 

These were my most beloved toys and we didn't even have enough room to take them with us when we left so my Babcia had kept them all these years for me. 

I don't think many people understand what it was to be an immigrant the way we were. 

I don't know that most people would understand what it must have been like to have to leave everything in the middle of the night, even your most beloved toys.

I didn't remember them in details, but when I held them in my hands, they felt "right".

They were still in one piece but my older daughter picked up the smaller doll and barely bent the leg to play with it and the legs fell off.  I had just finished telling her about the significance of these dolls so she was in tears telling me she had broken it.  I couldn't be upset.  They were over 29 years old at the time.  I just kissed her and told her they would only be for looking at and reminding our family what we went through, our family history.

I couldn't help but laugh a bit that they were obviously "choking hazards", yet, I had never choked on them.  It could be because I didn't have a lot of toys, my parents watched me carefully 24/7, and they taught me (as I taught my own children, to the confusion of some friends) to not put things in my mouth by the age of 6 months old. 

Of course, I was also potty trained at 6 months old.  Not conventionally potty trained, my parents used cloth diapers and "Elimination Communication" before it had such a catchy clinical name.

Do you have anything in your family to remember your family's arrival to the USA like this?