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Veteran’s Day: Soldiers, Known and Unknown

~ kasia1965 ~ Leave a comment

“When this war is over, I’ll travel to Poland, wrap my arms around my wife and daughter, and bring them home to Zaporizhzhia.” 

I caught a train from Krakow to Przemysl, near the Ukrainian border, to visit my paternal grandfather’s hometown. I never knew Wladyslaw Bielawa. What I did know of him was that he was a gentle, hardworking man of great faith, like my Dad. My purpose? Visit military cemeteries in this town straddling the San River. 

Przemysl, founded in the 8th century, is called “Little Lviv” with neoclassical and neogothic architecture associated with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Przemysl has been invaded, occupied and burned by marauding armies over the centuries; it’s been rebuilt many times. Tatar hordes “passed through” in 1657, raping and pillaging. My sisters were teased in school for their “slanted eyes” — I suspect our family carries expressions of genetic material from Eurasia. For the record, I was the odd sister out, left-handed and with decidedly slantless eyes.

Guided by map and iPhone, with a just-in-case compass in my pocket, I passed tenement houses with intricate wrought iron balconies and decorative elements evoking nature and mythology. Some buildings were beautifully restored in pastel shades of green, pink and yellow. Others embodied a gray, haggard, communist look, presumably awaiting restoration.

I paused in the sanctuary of the Fransican Church. This holy place survived six fires over the last seven centuries. Austrian occupiers turned the church into a stable during the partitions.*  I noticed hints of past grandeur of the 1910 Scheinbach Synagogue, now an apartment building. The Germans turned this house of worship into a stable during WWII. I will write more about what I learned about Przemysl’s Jewish community in a subsequent post. Violating the holy places of Roman Catholics and Jews seemed the invaders’ heinous prerogative. 

I crossed the marketplace square and passed businesses and homes along Slowackiego Avenue, named for Juliusz Slawacki, a 19th century Polish Romantic poet. I found the cemetery, entered its arched gateway and walked past elaborately decorated civilian graves — All Saints Day was November 1st — en route to the military burial sites. I paused to read some of the names and was struck by the graves of little children that spanned the upper wall, dividing eternal resting spaces for civilians and soldiers. The little ones’ epitaphs mentioned Heaven gaining new angels.

I found WWI Austro-Hungarian soldiers graves under a canopy of trees as late autumn leaves fell around me. Worn by time, the crosses yielded no perceptible names. My grandfathers, as Polish subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were drafted in WWI to serve the Emperor’s military whims conceived in faraway Vienna.

WWI ended at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day in the eleventh month of 1918. Empires collapsed and new, independent countries, including Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary emerged from the rubble. Redefining borders sparked conflicts. I visited the graves of Poles who died in the Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918-1919. My paternal grandfather was among the ranks of Poles who fought Ukrainians over control of Eastern Galicia. Names like Jan, Przemyslaw and Mieczyzlaw were etched into the stones.

I visited the elaborate, walled necropolis of WWII German soldiers’ graves. There were no flowers, just stade elements in black, white and gray marking where the remains of an estimated four thousand German soldiers were buried. 

So many soldiers. So many buried as “unknown.”

I stopped in a cafe for a pot of black tea and a slice of Szarlotka, sampling the local variation on Poland’s ubiquitous and delicious apple cake. This version was “z beza” topped with meringue, something I first experienced in a Ukrainian cafe in Krakow. 

I arrived early and sat in the waiting area of  Przemysl’s railway station. Archduke Charles Louis christened the palace-like structure in 1860. It’s been beautifully restored with soaring ceilings, frescoes, and the occasional chandelier. The station has been a major transit hub for Ukrainians since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. The Help Desk for Ukrainians was staffed on this Saturday night.

My train pulled into the station for boarding. My phone was nearly dead. The only proof of my ticket purchase would flicker off at any moment.  I asked my compartment-mates in Polish and English  if there were any plugs. It turned out they were Ukrainians. They got up to help look. With no plugs to be found, the forty-something man on my right — he had the longest eyelashes — pulled out a portable power bank from his backpack and handed it to me. I had no idea how far he was travelling (From Lviv? From Kyiv?) and didn’t want to deplete his source. He gently insisted. My phone quickly juiced up. I flashed my ticket with ease when the conductor came around.

“Where are you travelling?” I asked the man.

“I’m travelling from Zaporizhzhia,” he said in an Eastern-Ukrainian dialect that was hard for me to understand. 

Images of the war flashed in my mind. I’d read about Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia. I remember it hosts a massive nuclear power plant.

Kateryna, our fellow compartment-mate, spontaneously helped further my communication with her compatriot. She’s Ukrainian and has been living in Poland with her daughter since before the full-scale war. She speaks Polish fluently.

“I’m on leave for two weeks,” the soldier said. “I’m visiting my wife and daughter Anastasia (Nasta). They’ve been living in Poznan.”

I noted his clothing was not at all military — no camouflage, no duffel bag. He was dressed all in black with a North Face hoodie and black sneakers. He  was a journalist before the war and, most recently, worked in marketing. He now shoots down lethal Russian drones over Zaporizhzhia. He said Russian troops were just outside of his city. 

I asked if his wife and daughter felt well-treated by Poles. This matters as my father was a war refugee in the U.S. Some Americans treated him kindly. Some were pretty horrible and demeaning, telling him to “go back to where you came from.” (If you know history, you know he had no “home” to return to.) The soldier confirmed that Nasta and her mom felt safe and welcomed in Poznan. Nasta evacuated to Poland at fifteen and is now eighteen. Her father proudly said she quickly learned Polish and is doing well academically at her high school.

I realized this soldier was tired. I thanked Kateryna and him for the conversation and settled in to write in my journal. My train neared Krakow’s main station. I quietly removed a fifty-zloty note from my wallet and, as I exited the compartment, handed it to the soldier, encouraging him to  “treat Nasta to ice cream, on me.”  I wished him safety. I wished victory for Ukraine.

I realized I never learned his name.

*Poland was partitioned three times over the course of its history. The third partition, by the Russian, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, lasted from 1795 to 1918. Poland was wiped off of the map.

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Thanksgiving: On Leaky Faucets and Snarky Squirrels

~ kasia1965 ~ Leave a comment

A leaky kitchen faucet and a sharp-toothed squirrel thwarted our plans to host this year’s Thanksgiving feast. As I write this, Tony sits at home, waiting for plumbers who are four hours late. Tradespeople are rare commodities in Vermont. Chimney techs arrived on time, climbed onto our roof and, at $350 per hour, reported that we needed a special part that will take two weeks to arrive. 

We have no kitchen sink. We’ve been managing, washing utensils in a downstairs bathroom. Hosting, with its mass of plates, glasses, forks, knives and spoons would overload current facilities. Yes, this is a First World inconvenience.

We have no blazing fireplace. Incisors are chisel-shaped teeth whose Latin root means “to cut.” A snarky squirrel used his incisors to cut through the metal grating atop our chimney, build a penthouse suite, and render our gas fireplace unsafe. Today’s rodent move out date has been postponed, imposing yet another inconvenience.

Thanksgiving is a beloved holiday in our family. Football is not really our thing. Call us un-American. (We still love our friends who love football.) We follow a “hike before feasting” model. We start our holiday with a morning jaunt, usually to Texas Falls in Hancock. This year we’ll walk the trail at Indian Brook. I’ll pack a picnic lunch of fresh mozzarella sandwiches with tomato and homemade pesto, tortilla chips, apples and hot chocolate. I always bring a candle for ambience and, sometimes, warmth. We’ve done this in sun, rain, sleet and snow. 

Our menu is planned in advance. Homemade cranberry-orange relish, sweet potatoes with a hint of maple syrup, garlicky mashed potatoes, and a baked vegetarian “roast” of seitan and stuffing topped with delicate puff pastry populate are beloved dishes. Our friends will prepare a “real” turkey, veggie side dishes and assorted pies and baked goods as we gather to celebrate. We’ll make real whipped cream the old fashioned way, choosing pure creaminess over added sugar. And there will be questions, dinner questions to tease out stories!

Thanksgivings past, from my teen years, found my parents, sisters and me working in a restaurant on Turkey Day. Taking the day off was NOT an option. Failing to show up meant losing your job. I remember arriving early, by 11:00 a.m., at the former Jimmy’s Allenhurst Restaurant in Danvers, Massachusetts. We’d set up the dining room, prep tables, check sugar bowls and salt and pepper shakers, and fill ice buckets in the bar for so many Shirley Temples – Thanksgiving is a family holiday, after all! Jimmy, our boss, was a Greek restaurateur who fed staff only on holidays and, for Thanksgiving, it was prime rib. Doors opened at 12 noon, releasing a hungry herd, folks who preferred to “eat out” on the holiday. The race was on to feed and flip as many tables as possible while customers downed turkey with all the fixings and chose from among pumpkin, apple and pecan pies. I mastered fast walking across the dining room to clean, clear and reset tables. I returned home with tired feet and a bit of grease on my white blouse from shoulder-carrying heavy trays to and from the kitchen. Should I mention that smoking was allowed in restaurants at the time? I shudder when I think of all the secondhand smoke my parents, sisters, and I inhaled. My family celebrated Thanksgiving that evening or, more likely, on the following Saturday afternoon before resuming our evening shifts at the restaurant.

On this Thanksgiving, I am grateful to be home in beautiful Vermont with Tony. I am grateful that my daughter and her partner are traveling to join us. I am grateful we have a roof over our head, money for groceries, and a shared love of cooking. I am grateful I don’t have to work on the holiday. I have genuine respect for those who do work on the holiday, by choice, by threat of losing their job, or by sheer financial need. Finally, I am grateful for our friends who allowed us to shift festivities to their home given our leaky sink and squirrel situations. 

“Of course you can come here,” they said. “You are like family.”

Of course.

Wishing you and yours a day of gratitude and good food wherever and with whomever you mark the day.

I invite you to follow my blog at https://presenttime.blog/.

Parting Words: Traveler come. Enter under my leaves for a rest.

~ kasia1965 ~ 1 Comment

As my six weeks in Poland come to an end, I return to a country that has elected a convicted felon, misogynist, and xenophobe who lacks understanding of and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. Sadly, Donald J. Trump “missed the lecture” on constitutional separation of powers while at Wharton.  I return to a country — that my Polish family and friends remind me — has its own complicated history of genocide against Native Americans and enslavement of Black people. And now, we’ve, again, elected an authoritarian.

I leave my beloved “second home” with its deep, rich, and, yes, complex history in Central Europe. If only Poland had been gifted with a peaceful spot on the world’s stage, like an isolated island somewhere in the Pacific. If only Poland had been spared aggressive neighbors seeking to subsume its land, its culture, and its people. The impacts endure, shaping the collective psyche.

This has been a treasured time of observing, connecting, and sampling from a vast menu of human experiences. I offer a few reflections below.

Observing:  My “Little Ones” this year were five, six and seven. What was different after two previous autumns of volunteering with Ukrainian children displaced to Poland by the Russian invasion? These children are now tri- or quadri-lingual, speaking Ukrainian, Russian (as was often spoken in Eastern Ukraine), Polish, and English. Beautiful Mia with the long brown hair and shy eyes found courage to speak up to help her classmates, translating for them in Ukrainian, when they didn’t understand a question in English. I will NEVER FORGET the little boy who remembered he was “from Ukraine” but has NO MEMORY of living there. This is what the war has taken from countless Ukrainian children whose fathers remain across the border, defending their homeland from Putin.

Connecting: I’m grateful to my cousin, Adam, for showing me our grandmother Ludwika’s Autograph Book, dating from World War I. This was a time when her Polish brothers were drafted to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army in Serbia and Italy, while she and her mother were evacuated from Jaroslaw to Graz because of dangerous proximity to the Eastern Front. Reading entries with devotions to friendship in flowery script reminded me that my grandmother was once young and full of dreams. Elzbieta, writing on May 28, 1917, penned that my grandmother was a beloved friend possessing “countless dear hearts.”  How could grandmother have foreseen that war would return in twenty years? WWII took her freedom, her safety, her home, her three eldest children to the Reich as forced laborers, and her infant son who died of starvation. And yet, these losses did not break her spirit — she maintained her signature feistiness. 

Sampling:  You might think this is about food. Spending time in Poland is more about sampling the culture and taking the political temperature to the extent my language skills allow. I attended a Rosh Hashanah celebration at Krakow’s Jewish Community Center where friends introduced me to Sarah, the rabbi’s wife. She and her family relocated to Poland from Israel. She said that people in Israel questioned their decision to move to Poland. She told me, “We feel safe here. There is a growing community here with so many families and children.” I also attended a Palestinian Film Festival to see Basel Adra’s No Other Land. The cinema was filled to capacity for the screening and post-film discussion. Watching documentary footage of West Bank Palestinian homes destroyed by bulldozers was a visual gut punch. Learning from past experience, I proactively purchased tickets to weekly Poetry Salons at Teatr Stary (The Old Theater). These sold-out poetry recitations by professional actors and/or theater students feature dramatic interpretations of Poland’s best bards. A phrase that will remain with me is from Jan Kochanowski’s (1530-1584) poem Na Lipę (The Linden Tree): “Gościu, siądź pod mym liściem, a odpoczni sobie.” “Traveler, come. Enter under my leaves for a rest.”

I arrived in Poland when leaves were just beginning their slow transformation to autumn hues. Greens shifted to deep reds of macintosh apples and shimmering golds of sunsets on the Vistula. This morning, bronze leaves crunched underfoot as I made my way from my flat to a favored writing space on Bracka Street. I leave tomorrow, my heart filled with gratitude for this time, these people, this place. 

I am gathering my hopes like so many shells from Poland’s Jelitkowo Beach on the Baltic, mustering courage for what lies ahead. I pray for a just peace in Ukraine. I pray for a just peace in the Middle East. I pray for a just United States. I pray for a just world.

I invite you to follow my blog at https://presenttime.blog/

Migration: Here, There, Everywhere

~ kasia1965 ~ 1 Comment

The April 4, 1949 edition of the Boston Daily Globe printed a small article on page seven: “D.P. Ship Here Tomorrow Morning.” My father, Mieczyslaw Bielawa, a survivor of inhumane Nazi forced labor camps, was on board. He was taken from his family by the Germans when he was sixteen, liberated by Americans at twenty, and arrived in Boston at twenty-four following a stint working for the American military in postwar occupied Germany. 

Dad made the two-week, transatlantic crossing from Bremerhaven, Germany, aboard the Marine Flasher. The ship carried 543 war survivors, mostly from Eastern Europe, who awaited a new and uncertain future in the West after their homelands fell to communism. Some Americans welcomed and helped the refugees find their footing. Others opposed the influx. Worse yet, some turned DP (Displaced Person) into a slur. My father was called this on more than one occasion when he settled in Peabody, Massachusetts. He was told to “Go home” even though shifted borders meant “home” no longer existed.

I carry this story in my heart as I read about Europe’s migrant crisis. The sheer volume of migrants seeking refuge — from political instability, war, and the ravages of climate change — presses up against the borders of the European Union with increasing intensity. We read about the tragedies at sea of overloaded, unsteady boats trying to reach Europe from Africa. Desperate migrants attempt to swim from “The Jungle” in Calais, France — a former landfill turned into a migrant encampment — across the English Channel.

And what are we seeing? England proposed an ill-fated plan to relocate migrants to Rwanda amid a surge in right-wing, anti-immigrant rancor. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni launched an effort to divert migrants to Albania and was overruled by the Italian judiciary. Ireland’s Ross Lake House Hostel in Rosscahill, County Galway, was torched by arsonists in December 2023 as it was being renovated to house seventy asylum seekers. Denmark is, literally, DEMOLISHING affordable housing estates to dismantle so-called “parallel societies”—ethnic enclaves where immigrants are not learning Danish and are not engaging in Danish society.  France’s recently re-elected government, in a nod to a burgeoning far-right, agreed to target illegal immigration. Germany reintroduced document checks at all land crossings with Poland in October 2023. Disaffected youth from migrant communities are readily accessible targets for  those seeking to radicalize them. What matters if you think you have nothing to lose?

Russia and Belarus are pariahs in the neighborhood that is Europe. They conspire to destabilize the EU via espionage, economics, social media and, sadly, exploitation of the global migrant crisis. Finland’s and Poland’s national borders with Russia and Belarus carry the added responsibility of being EU access points. Russia and Belarus are exploiting migrants in an attempt to undermine border security with human beings.

Finland, an EU member since 1995 and a NATO member since 2023, shares an 830-mile border with Russia. Finland accused Russia of weaponizing migration by luring migrants, largely from the Middle East and Africa, to Russia and then transporting them to the Finnish border to attempt illegal crossings. Russia drives them towards the border and provides bicycles for the last leg. Finland’s Parliament took an extraordinary and questionable step: They passed a law on July 12, 2024, closing all border crossings with Russia and temporarily suspending asylum requests. Human rights activists sounded the alarm. The border remains closed.

Poland, an EU member since 2004 and a NATO member since 1999, shares a 258-mile border with Belarus. Poland accused Belarus of engaging in hybrid warfare at the expense of desperate migrants. Belarus’ Belavia Airlines partnered with Turkish Airlines to increase flights from Istanbul to Minsk from where migrants were bussed to the Polish border. The Turkish government originally denied complicity; they have since begun cooperating with Poland to limit such flights. Poland’s centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, recently announced that Poland—taking a page from Finland’s playbook—intends to temporarily suspend asylum requests with a plan to create integration centers across the country and further fortify the border to discourage those who would seek illegal entry. Poland currently hosts approximately 1,000,000 Ukrainian war refugees and can apply lessons learned from integration efforts.

“Pushbacks”—harmful, deadly and inhumane—occur at the Russian-Finnish and Belarus-Polish Borders. Russian and Belarusian border guards literally “push” migrants toward the Finnish and Polish borders. Finnish and Polish border guards literally “push” migrants back. This back and forth is demoralizing and dangerous. Some humanitarian aid reaches migrants via volunteers as in the case of Poland’s Grupa Granica  (https://www.facebook.com/grupagranica/?locale=pl_PL). Agnieszka Holland’s film Green Border (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/green_border) is a difficult but important film. It pains me to think of humans treated in this way. I am reminded of my own country’s legacy of slavery of inhumane treatment of Native Americans and Black people. 

My mind returns to that refugee ship that arrived in Boston in 1949. Massachusetts prides itself on a perceived history of liberal values. The state enacted our nation’s first “right to shelter” law in 1983, guaranteeing shelter for all homeless families and pregnant women. 

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, embracing a variation on Russian and Belarusian tactics, flew approximately 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in May 2022 depositing them, unannounced, at the airport. The community rallied around the group. 

More immigrants began arriving in Massachusetts, with one-way travel paid for by the states of Texas and Florida. Public sentiment has since shifted. The international arrivals hall at Boston’s Logan Airport became an impromptu shelter for migrants until it was disbanded in July 2024. Massachusetts’ Democratic Governor Maura Healey dispatched representatives to the U.S.-Mexico Border to convey the message that the states’ emergency shelter system is at capacity. The Boston Globe reported on the impact on public schools as more ESL teachers and supports are needed. 

Anti-immigrant rhetoric in the U.S. is fueled by increasing economic disparity. Tensions are rising as some in Massachusetts raise the nativist flag asking why new arrivals are housed while so many locals remain homeless. Donald Trump and JD Vance disperse the embers of this vitriol to fuel raging fires along the campaign trail across the country.

As the child of refugees, my knee-jerk reaction has always been to support immigrants. As a thinking person, I realize the unsustainability of current responses. Humans with hopes, dreams and aspirations like you and me are suffering. This prompted me to research possible, evidence-based solutions to tackle poverty on a country-by-country level.

The United Nations 17 Sustainability Goals offer a blueprint with opportunities to advance this initiative:

End PovertyClean and Affordable EnergyClimate Action
End HungerDecent Work and Economic GrowthLife Below Water
HealthcareIndustry, Innovation and InfrastructureLife on Land
EducationReduced InequalityPeace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Gender EqualitySustainable CommunitiesPartnerships
Clean WaterResponsible Consumption and Production

You can read the full report here: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

The question remains: Do we have the COLLECTIVE WILL to make the necessary sacrifices and investments to achieve these goals? I certainly hope so.

Sources and to learn more:

https://freshfrompoland.com/project/gapinski-kubiak-jungle

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33584706

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/massachusetts-governor-halts-decades-old-right-to-shelter-for-homeless-families/

https://apnews.com/article/france-migrants-government-barnier-macron-far-right-3242a5dbf366bb7fbc7ba050700c9571

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/12/finland-passes-law-to-block-asylum-seekers-crossing-from-russia

https://anfenglishmobile.com/news/eu-migrants-transported-from-istanbul-to-minsk-in-cooperation-with-turkish-airlines-56153

https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-donald-tusk-asylum-right-border-migration-belarus-russia-hybrid-war-eu/

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/09/us/boston-logan-airport-migrants-cec/index.html

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/24/metro/massachusetts-west-springfield-school-migrants-immigration/?p1=BGSearch_Advanced_Results

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/08/15/metro/saugus-migrant-students-warning/?p1=BGSearch_Advanced_Results
Image:  https://sousamendesfoundation.org/ships/marine-flasher

I invite you to follow my blog: https://presenttime.blog

Note from Vienna

~ kasia1965 ~ 2 Comments


Aloisia commissioned the artwork in her husband Franz’s memory in 1906. The mosaic, depicting St. Jerome holding a cross and skull, is one of several adorning the exterior of the St. Anthony of Padua Church in the Favoriten DIstrict of Vienna. I wondered about Aloisia and Franz and their lives in Vienna as subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I loved how the mosaic serves as an enduring representation of their love.

Franz Joseph 1 (1830-1916), Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, laid the corner stone of St. Anthony’s on November 10, 1896. The massive Romanesque and Byzantine church was created to meet the demand of a burgeoning Roman Catholic population. There were marriages to consecrate, babies to baptize, and funerals to commemorate lives lived. I stood outside taking in the soaring towers, arched windows and raised dome of the red brick edifice.

I chose to stay in the Favoriten District of Vienna for its proximity to the main train station and walkability to the city center. I booked a room at the newly renovated Boutique Hotel Kolbeck, noted for being friendly to solo travelers. I’ve learned—from my mistakes—to scrupulously study reviews of accommodations, inserting words like “clean” and “quiet” into search tools. My room was, indeed, clean and quiet with crisp sheets and a pristine private bathroom. My space was small, reminiscent of a single in a dorm. It suited me just fine as I was only there to sleep. My window overlooked an inner courtyard. 

The five-hour train from Katowice, Poland, chugged through the Czech Republic and skimmed near the Hungarian border before depositing me in Vienna. The largely agrarian landscape hosted occasional solar arrays and wind farms, reminders of the need to seek alternative energy as the region recovers from Storm Boris. 

Arriving in Vienna in late afternoon, I ditched my luggage and set out in search of dinner and familiarity—on foot. The pedestrian way along Favoriten Street was bustling. Packs of high schoolers carried backpacks and ate kaiser pommes (french fries) doused with mayonnaise or ketchup. Toddlers played on the plaza under the watchful eyes of their mothers. The neighborhood evoked a familiar, working class vibe, with practical shops dispensing kitchen utensils, linens, and hosiery. I noticed many women wearing hijabs as I walked past Halal butchers and grocery stores. A food kiosk boldly advertised “Noodle – Kebap- Falafel – Hotdog” in a nod to diversity.  Men sat at outdoor cafes sipping tiny cups of coffee or glasses of hot tea. So many of them smoked. The smoke triggered a headache, thankfully cured by Advil in my backpack. I heard lots of German and Arabic with smatterings of English, Polish and Ukrainian. 

It was on this walk the I happened upon St. Anthony’s. Its spires caught my eye, peripherally, as I walked along Favoriten Street. I chose to detour.  A young boy was shooting baskets with his father on a court adjacent to the church. A group of teens sat outside on a bench, smoking. A woman left the church and I noted graffiti on the door as it closed. The massive entrance doors were locked due to the late hour. Signs advised visitors to not smoke, eat, or skateboard along the entryway.

I circled the building, snapping photos of its external mosaics peering down from above. This is how I found Aloisia and Franz. Graffiti, in German and Arabic encircled the exterior of the church. For the record, I am not a fan of graffiti. Encountering it on a place of worship is particularly troubling to me.

Later that evening, I conducted some research. I learned St. Anthony’s was vandalized with spray-painted statements including “Islam will win” and “religion over secular life.” Additionally, fifty youths broke into the sanctuary in October 2020, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is the greatest”). This occurred shortly after the murder of teacher Samuel Paty in France. I further learned there has been an uptick in graffiti targeting Vienna’s Muslim, Jewish and Christian houses of worship since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

So, what are peace-seeking people to do? The website for St. Anthony’s cites a kindergarten open to and respectful of all children of varying faiths, a weekly flea market and free community meal, a meet-up for seniors every Sunday at 3:00 p.m. and, of course, Masses—in German, Polish and English, the latter for African congregants.

Here’s to the peace-seekers, the bridge-builders, and the enduring legacy of love.

Sources:   https://at.usembassy.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/70/2020/12/2023-Report-on-International-Religious-Freedom-in-Austria.pdf, https://www.intoleranceagainstchristians.eu/index.php?id=12&case=8021

I invite you to follow my blog: https://presenttime.blog

What would George think?

~ kasia1965 ~ 1 Comment


I slid open the wooden drawer of the university library’s card catalog to thumb through weathered index cards bearing authors’ names, titles of their works, and call numbers. I searched for a particular mid-alphabet author. Somewhere between Okolski, Szymon and Orzeszkowa, Eliza, I found what I was looking for:  Orwell, George (1903-1950), 1984. This listing contained a subtle warning: Access requires permission from faculty. 

It was 1984. I was studying on exchange in Communist Poland at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University. Soviet-style repression—limiting freedom of movement, freedom of expression, freedom to gather, and freedom to read books censored by the government—like Orwell’s—defined the confining parameters under which Poles lived. 

To seek permission from a professor to read a censored book could bring one under suspicion and, potentially, risk a highly-coveted place at the university. 

I arrived in Poland a few months before, a wet-behind-the-ears, novice traveler. At nineteen, I’d flown only twice before. I purchased a Boston to Brussels plane ticket and another ticket for a thirty-hour train to Warsaw. The last leg of the trip would be a three-hour express train from Warsaw to Krakow. I was young, excited and looking forward to the 60-hour, 4092-mile journey.

I purchased an enormous travel trunk. Ten months of clothing, shampoo, soap and deodorant were stuffed inside as I prepared for fall, winter and spring in a country where consumer goods were in short supply. I stupidly packed (heavy) books. My Mom commandeered part of my trunk, adding clothing, coffee, chocolate and Polish ham for me to bring to family. The irony of the last item: Polish ham was sent out for export to bring in cold, hard cash from the West. Ham was rarely available in Polish stores.

My carry-on luggage included sealed envelopes bearing names of family members containing hard-earned cash gifts from my parents. Amid shortages and rationing, the Communist government established special stores called Pewex that sold medicines, coffee, chocolate, calculators and appliances—items not readily available in shops. What was the hitch? You could only buy these items with foreign hard currencies like U.S. Dollars, West German Deutsche Marks, French Francs and British Pounds. What was the problem? Private ownership of hard currencies was forbidden by the government. This spawned an elaborate Czarny Rynek – Black Market of currency exchanges. I remembered my Aunt Jancia hid carefully folded dollars in a nondescript coffee can in her kitchen.

Landing in Brussels, I retrieved my enormous trunk from the conveyor belt. One of its four wheels went missing somewhere between Boston and Brussels. I spent the day DRAGGING my laden luggage around Brussels. Bumping along the cobbled Grand-Place square provided lots of “eye candy” for my sleep-deprived eyes. I remember ornate guild houses, the soaring Cathedral of St. Gudula, and Manneken Pis, the famed water fountain with a sculpture of a little boy peeing. 

I dragged my trunk and myself to Brussels’ Central Station for the thirty-hour train to Warsaw. I slept haphazardly, keeping half an eye on my trunk in the corridor – it was too large to fit in the compartment. 

Somehow, I landed at my Krakow dorm – Dom Studencki “Piast” at 47 Piastowska Street in Krakow. Directed to my room, I walked through the dimly lit corridor on the second floor and noticed two things: cloth baby diapers drying on an improvised clothesline in the hallway and the aroma of simmering soup.

I entered a new world, a Communist world. I learned. I listened. I observed.

My classroom lessons were complemented by learning to covertly trade dollars on the Black Market while mastering the art of securing a spot in long lines for rationed pieces of kielbasa and scratchy, gray and speckled toilet paper. I passed large images of Lenin and red-lettered banners around the city extolling the virtues of socialism and the ills of capitalism. I quietly gathered illegal, pro-Solidarity newsletters dispersed by the underground. A vicious political regime imprisoned dissenters. Soon after I arrived, secret police kidnapped and murdered Jerzy Popieluszko, an outspoken, pro-democracy Roman Catholic Priest.

Communist dogma espoused creation of a classless society. This was a lie. Soviet-imposed communism in Poland at the end of WWII created special privileges for those who agreed to a Faustian bargain, signing on to membership to the Communist Party. (Note: Poland had the lowest Communist Party membership within the Eastern Block.) These privileges included express lanes to securing job promotions, a telephone, a flat, or a humble Polski Fiat. Young married couples waited years for apartments and were forced to lived on the other side of the wall of their parents in their childhood bedrooms in drab Socialist Realist housing estates.

Orwell had Big Brother. Poles had “Uncle” – their reference to the Soviet Union and its interference in their lives. Poles were not fools. They learned navigate this unjust political and economic system via a vast subterranean world where people bartered for needed items in their kitchens, in dorm rooms, and via the trunks of their cars…if they had a car.  Words like załatwić and kombinować — references to “arranging for” hard-to-find items — entered the Polish lexicon. Poets, playwrights, artists, musicians and filmmakers plied their crafts, promoting pro-democracy ideas, engaging metaphor and symbolism, to push past censors.  

I decided to not request special permission to read Orwell’s book. I’d already read it in the U.S.  Forty years later, I am back in Krakow. It is 2024, not 1984. I recently stepped inside the Księgarnia pod Globusem bookstore on Długa Street and spotted Orwell’s book, in Polish. Who could have imagined?

Today, Poland is a parliamentary democracy with a growing economy. Poles voted out the right-wing Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice) ruling party in 2023, handing victory to the centrist Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform). Poland is experiencing slow but steady cultural shifts that are more aligned with western Europe. 

Poland opened its borders to millions of Ukrainians seeking refuge from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Today, Ukrainian is commonly heard on the streets and in shops. Poland’s response reflects compassion for human suffering in spite of complicated Polish-Ukrainian history. I suspect another factor is at play. Polish collective memory is marked by a deep, visceral trauma and awareness of Russian and, later, Soviet occupations, deportations, subjugations, displacements and murder of its people at the hands of its neighbor to the East. 

As in 1984, I am here to learn, listen and observe, clear-eyed and with an awareness of the history of this beautiful, resilient, and complicated place that I love. I wonder what George would think.

What’s up next in the Present TIme Blog? I’ll offer a look at Poland’s response to Europe’s migrant crisis as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk takes a page from Finland’s controversial playbook for managing the Russo-Finnish Border. Stay tuned.

I invite you to follow the Present Time Blog: https://presenttime.blog

Raging Waters — Finding Hope

~ kasia1965 ~ 2 Comments

“Now I know what it feels like to be a refugee,” my sister Jane said. She’s been forced from her home in Weaverville, North Carolina. Her house, which she thoughtfully designed and moved into in 2022, was spared Hurricane Helene’s flood waters, but the storm knocked out electricity, water and cell service for an indeterminate period of time. Residents were advised to evacuate. My sister drove a winding and mottled path, around washed out, hilly roads as segments of the highway were impassible. She found refuge at the home of a friend who offered a place to stay with warm showers and functioning toilets.

Jane was drawn to the beauty of western North Carolina decades ago. Settling in Asheville provided robust entrepreneurial opportunities, quality schools for her sons, and an emergent arts and culture scene. Asheville was considered a climate haven. Today, Asheville is caked in mud. Receding floodwaters reveal a landscape ravaged by the once calm French Broad River.

“Our home has flooded and we’ve lost our apiary,” read the message on my cousin’s Go Fund Me page. His home, in a bucolic town just outside Nysa, Poland, was flooded when Storm Boris swept through Central Europe in mid-September. Photos accompanying the request for assistance show the interior of a modern, airy home, with furniture and housewares floating in brown water. My cousin is a beekeeper. His carefully tended hives are toppled and scattered in mud, devastated by the swollen Klodzka River.

Storm Boris brought record heavy rainfall to Central Europe, flooding areas in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. My Poland-based cousins are gathering funds to help our family near Nysa. I, too, made a donation even though I have not met this particular cousin. His father was my mother’s eldest brother who, as a teenager, managed to escape the Germans who snapped him up from the road in Radgoszcz — as the Germans did in WWII actions called “Lapanki” — to deport him to Germany as a Forced Laborer. (I will share the story of his brave escape another time.)

My father’s family lives in Prudnik, Poland, which lies sixteen miles west of Nysa, on the Czech Border. The New York Times showed drone film footage of flooding in tiny, quaint Prudnik. I thought, “I know this place. I’ve walked here. My family lives here.”

The scene of the cemetery where my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are buried —  including my beloved Uncle Czeslaw, a Carpathian mountaineer, who died in February at age 94 — under water broke my heart. I’ve walked along those graves to place flowers or light a candle. My family didn’t exactly “choose” Prudnik. My father’s parents settled in Western Ukraine, near Lwow (Lviv) in the 1920s when it was part of Poland. They were forced to evacuate at the end of WWII, as borders shifted and their region was absorbed into the U.S.S.R.

Vermont experienced devastating floods in 2023 and 2024. Friends in Central Vermont lost part of their back yard when the normally calm stream on their property ballooned to a torrent, tearing away part of their lawn. Images of a mud-caked Montpelier, streets lined with dumpsters, populate my mind’s eye. Montpelier residents are still waiting for the restoration of a fully functioning post office after the North Branch River flooded downtown in July 2023. Vermont was considered a climate haven.

Here in Krakow, I walk along the Vistula River past the Wawel Palace each day. The river jumped its banks in September but, fortunately, waters did not reach the city’s medieval core.

I cannot imagine. But then, I can. History repeats.

My maternal grandparents were forced to seek refuge for themselves and their children in an unheated attic in Sutkow, a neighboring village, when German soldiers occupied their home. (It’s worth noting the cruelty of the Germans: they booby-trapped the home with grenades before leaving.) Borders shifted at Yalta, forcing my paternal grandparents to become refugees, abandoning the home my grandfather designed and built overlooking the Bieszczady Mountains. They traveled via cattle car, with their children, to find a home in the resettlement area of Silesia and landed in Prudnik. My father arrived in the U.S. in 1949 as a WWII refugee, with one suitcase and hope for a better life. My mother arrived in the U.S. in 1959 with one suitcase, leaving behind her beloved parents and a life limited by a corrupt communist system.

Where do I find HOPE amid these climate uncertainties? I think of my ancestors and their resilience. I also think of several young people I know of who are contributing their intellect and talents to unraveling climate change’s emergent challenges — in atmospheric physics, in applying space science to create computer models to anticipate climate impacts on infectious disease transmission and in promoting consumptive alternatives to how we live our lives. I also think of young people creating music, art, prose and poetry that bring joy. Learning to find joy amid uncertainty is key.

I invite you to follow my blog at https://presenttime.blog.

All I know

~ kasia1965 ~ Leave a comment

It’s a blue sky day in Vermont. I’m in a reflective mood as I remember September 11th, 2001. Our daughter was little. Our careers were mid. Our sense of safety was intact.

My husband left for work at the nearby IBM plant early that morning. My daughter Aleksandra — a newly minted kindergartner at Williston’s Allen Brook School — exchanged “kissing hands” with me as I wished her a great day at school. We were less than two weeks into the school year. I was still adjusting to trusting “Nancy the bus driver” to safely transport my child to school. Aleksandra boarded the orange school bus wearing a colorful Howdy Wear jumper and black Mary Janes. The light blue backpack she’d chosen for school seemed enormous on her little back.

I left home at 8:45 a.m. for a 9:00 a.m. meeting at Chef’s Corner. I’d been encouraged to consider and was weighing a possible run for the Vermont Legislature. I met with a kind and gracious Williston Mom who was also considering a run.

“I just heard on public radio that a plane flew into the World Trade Center,” my tablemate said as I arrived at the cafe.

The vision in my head was that of a small Cessna-like plane and an errant, perhaps inexperienced, pilot. I felt a tinge of sadness before the thought slipped from my mind. I could not have imagined two Boeing 767s — American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 — barreling into the World Trade Center’s North and South Towers at 8:46 a.m. and 9:03 a.m.

Conversation over coffee commenced. Ultimately, I chose not to run for the Legislature. Although it was flattering to be encouraged to run, the time simply didn’t feel right. I was shifting focus to re-ignite my career following a wonderfully creative and fun, five-year “parenting sabbatical.” I remain grateful to this day for the gift of TIME for arts, crafts, reading, cooking, library story times, playgroups and simply hanging out with my favorite little person. My fellow Williston Mom, an accomplished volunteer with a law degree, would run for the Legislature, win, and go on to serve our town with distinction.

I left the cafe and drove to a neighbor’s home to pick up some paperwork for a community project we worked on together. Steve answered the door and asked, “Have you heard what happened in New York?” The vision of a small Cessna flashed in my brain. “Come in.”

Steve’s living room television broadcast images from a seeming war zone — smoke, fire, debris, people covered in soot and emergency responders coordinating on the ground flashed before me. I was shocked. I was stunned. I immediately thought of those I loved.

I drove home, shaken. There was a message on the answering machine from my husband: “I’m not sure what’s going on. All I know is that I want to talk with you.” How steadying it was when I called his office and he picked up the phone.

All flights were grounded as airspace closed. Williston Schools sent our children home early with sealed envelopes offering thoughtful, age-appropriate guidance on how to talk with our children about what was happening. I remain grateful for the school’s care and expertise. Soon, I’d see the images, repeated over and over, of the planes’ deadly and destructive impact. I’d learn of the attack on the Pentagon and the plane downed by brave passengers in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I’d begin the nightly wakings as F-16s departed Vermont for weeks — or was it months — to patrol the skies over New York City. Each time I woke to the roar of the engines, I was reminded, “Oh, yes, this happened.”

Twenty-three years ago today, the unimaginable happened. I remain grateful to the helpers.

I invite you to follow my blog at https://presenttime.blog.

I understand the world is tired of this war, the ongoing cruelty, the killing. I just ask people to try to put themselves in our shoes.

~ kasia1965 ~ Leave a comment

“In five years, if the war is over, I see myself living in my family’s cottage in a beautiful natural area near Kharkiv,” Anna said. “I hate dogs.  I want a goat—they have horns and are very smart. I also want a goose. If the war isn’t over, I will continue to volunteer and aid the Ukrainian people who are victims of this war.  I will not stop until Ukraine is free.”

Anna is a 29-year-old English teacher, poet and activist living in Krakow, Poland. She speaks Ukrainian, Yiddish, English and Chinese. She was born in Kharkiv where her mother and stepfather remain with her disabled brother.  Kharkiv lies forty kilometers from the Russian border and continues to experience bombardments.  

Anna’s heritage is Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish. Her great-grandmother was an ethnic Pole who survived the Volhynia Massacre; tragically, most of her great-grandmother’s family were murdered. The Volhynia Massacre is a lesser known, dark chapter of WWII history in which the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) murdered an estimated 100,000 Polish civilians in what was then Poland and is today northwestern Ukraine. Polish militias took retaliatory actions, murdering an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Ukrainian peasants. The history is muddy and not completely clear. Historians today believe the Nazis fomented the violence between the two Slavic ethnicities living under the horrors of German occupation.

Anna emerged from this complicated family history to attend university and work as a journalist in Ukraine. She holds certifications to teach English to non-English speakers. She is a committed feminist. Anna is also a poet who recently performed on stage in Krakow, her current adopted city. She is also a skilled seamstress.

Anna has been involved in refugee relief efforts since 2014 with Russia’s assault and illegal annexation of Crimea followed by military incursions in Luhansk and Donetsk in ever-broadening efforts to annex Ukrainian territory. Putin ignores that Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Anna has helped organize clothing donations as a volunteer. She has also taught English to Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) arriving in Kharkiv from Luhansk and Donetsk.  

Anna’s desire to travel inspired her to live and teach in Asia. She was teaching in China when she learned of Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine. China’s support of Russia’s aggression prompted her to leave.  She no longer wanted to live in a country aligned with the invaders. This is how she landed in Poland where she teaches and writes.

“I understand the world is tired of this war, the ongoing cruelty, the killing,” Anna said. “I just ask people to try to put themselves in our shoes. Do you really want me to give up my home, my land and my dreams to people who kill, rape and torture my people?”

Follow Anna:  https://twitter.com/Battlecruiser_a  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCusrXRqG-O40cyjPQ-swGcQ 
Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia_and_Eastern_Galicia

Independence Day: Undoing the Social and Diplomatic Harm of a Right Wing Government

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Independence Day:  Undoing social and diplomatic harm

November 11 is Polish Independence Day.  The signing of the Armistice ending World War I on November 11, 1918, paved the way for Poland to regain statehood following over a century of partitioning by the Russian, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.  This small central European country was restored after, literally, being erased from the map by its aggressive neighbors.  Poles worked to retain their language and culture amid intentional Russification and Germanization.  My grandmother recounted being chastised by occupying Austrian soldiers for speaking Polish in a shop in her hometown of Jaroslaw just before WWI.

This year’s Polish Independence Day celebrations felt particularly jubilant as I meandered Krakow’s medieval Marketplace Square festooned with red and white flags.  Toddlers in strollers waved little red and white Polish flags.  People munched obwarzanki, Krakow’s braided, ring-shaped street snack.  I spied a teen sporting a bright rainbow tote on her shoulder in a nod to Poland’s nascent LGBTQI movement.  I overheard revelers speaking Ukrainian, French, Italian, Spanish, English and Vietnamese among the largely Polish crowd.  A stage with elaborate lighting and accompanying video screen hosted a series of prominent Polish performers leading the crowd in a singalong, lyrics provided.

An enormous Polish flag skimmed the 14th century Ratusz Tower made of stone and brick.  The Gestapo interrogated and tortured Polish citizens here during World War II. The Nazis hung massive red, black and white, in-your-face Swastika banners along the square during their six-year, oppressive occupation of Poland during which approximately six million Polish citizens died.  Three million were Jewish; three million were non-Jewish.  Another three million—one of them was my father—were sent to the Reich as forced laborers. 

I remember walking on the Marketplace Square in the fall of 1984 with my friend Grzegorz, a fellow university student, who said, “See, their (the U.S.S.R.’s) holidays are our holidays.” We were enveloped in a sea of Soviet red flags and banners celebrating the anniversary of the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.  Most Poles at that time were vehemently anti-communist.  They were proud of the fact that Poland registered the lowest Communist Party per capita membership of any of the Warsaw Pact nations.  A common joke from that time mentioned two dogs, one Polish and one Czech, meeting on the Polish-Czech border.  The Polish dog said, “I’m going to Prague so I can buy a pair of shoes.”  The Czech dog said, “I’m going to Warsaw so I can bark.”

Why did this Polish Independence Day feel particularly celebratory to me?  Poles voted on October 15, 2023, to free their country from the right wing, populist stranglehold of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc--Law and Justice–party (PIS) which maintained a Parliamentary majority since 2015.  Approximately seventy percent of the electorate turned out, with younger voters playing a pivotal role in results.

Poland’s new coalition government, comprised of the Civil Platform, Third Way and The Left political parties, is poised to assume leadership and elect a Prime Minister.  The victors released a joint statement promising to work together to: restore rule of law, annul Poland’s near-total abortion ban, depoliticize public media, prosecute hate speech made against members of Poland’s LGBT* community, and separate church and state.  They are committed to repair relations with the European Union (EU) for this eastern outpost “edge” of NATO and the EU which borders Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia to the east. In my view, the coalition is striving to undue social and diplomatic harm of eight years of PIS control. 

It will not be smooth sailing for the new government.  Poland’s constitution divides leadership between the Prime Minister, as head of government, and the President, as head of state.  Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform Party will, likely, become Prime Minister, a role he served in from 2007 to 2014.  He was also President of the European Council, comprised of heads of state of EU members charged with informing and leading the political direction of the EU.  Poland’s new coalition government will need to find ways to co-opt and/or work around Polish President Andrzej Duda, a member of the PIS Party.  Duda’s term expires in August of 2025.

I’ve been informally polling family, friends and acquaintances who, admittedly, tend to lean more liberally, like me.  I’m a bit of a regular at a café near my flat where the baristas and I are on a first name basis.  These young Poles churning out espressos, lattes and cappuccinos, voted to oust the PIS government.  Overall, the Poles I talk with are happy with the elections results.  I am hopeful Poland will find a positive and increasingly open and tolerant way forward.  (The waning influence of the Roman Catholic church is a key factor and merits another blog posting from me.  Many Poles are redefining spirituality on their own terms while disconnecting from the dogma of a heavy handed, politicized church.)

I suspect Poland’s deep history of trauma—a legacy of unfortunate geopolitics—impacts a nation and its people for generations. The U.S.’ relative isolation can complicate Americans’ ability to truly understand the historical realities of Central Europe.  I am grateful to be in Poland TODAY to celebrate what the collective spirit of a resilient people can endure. 

*This is the acronym the new government used.  Awareness is growing in Poland and, I suspect, this acronym will be broadened in time.