history

Dear Cecylia: A Mother’s Parting Gift

~ kasia1965 ~ 3 Comments

Dear Cecylia,

I didn’t know you. You met my daughter, your lab’s summer intern with the Polish first name. You suspected our family might be able to help. 

I still remember Aleksandra saying, “Mom, there’s this Polish scientist in the lab. She has cancer. She wants to know if we want her Polish books.”  It was summer 2015. We just downsized to a townhouse. My husband and I spent winter and spring mired in the tedium of choosing which possessions to keep, donate, recycle or trash.

Trimming our books proved complicated and emotional. Save Aleksandra’s picture book from a beloved, long-deceased great aunt? Toss Homer’s Odyssey from freshman year? Keep the dusty travel tomes that belonged to my husband’s mother, another single mom, who dreamt of visiting Europe but never made it?

You knew you were dying. Fate abandoned you on the losing side of a battle with cancer. As disease consumed you, you dispensed with the material aspects of your immigrant’s life. This would be your parting gift to your young adult sons. You couldn’t spare them grief from losing their mother; you could neatly tie up loose ends.

I declined your offer. You persisted. Aleksandra persisted with, “Mom, she seems pretty desperate. Can you help?”  I felt pressured. I also felt guilty. How could I not grant a wish to a dying mother? 

I investigated options. Was there a library somewhere that accepted Polish language books? No luck. I relented, agreeing to take “three boxes,” trusting I’d figure out something.  

I remember pulling up to your condo in Colchester with Aleksandra, three empty boxes in my trunk. Your eyes were a deep blue like by Babcia (grandmother). I sensed your desperation…and relief.  You said you’d “already packed the books.” 

There were so many boxes. 

I experienced an emotional cocktail of grief and compassion with a twist of frustration. I thought: “What am I to do with these?” You explained that your sons did not want these Polish books.

Aleksandra helped me unload the boxes at home. They “lived” in our garage before I found time to go through them. Turns out these books were stamped with the insignia from the personal library of a once-famous Polish photographer and political dissident from Wroclaw who was forced to leave Poland amid communist crackdowns. 

Wroclaw? Had your family also been deported in cattle cars to this former German, now Polish region, after World War II? Did we share roots in Western Ukraine, when it was part of Poland, as so many in Silesia do? 

You, Cecylia, earned your Master’s Degree at the polytechnic in Wroclaw. I don’t know how you came to possess these books and how this carefully curated collection encompassing Polish history, art, literature, photography, and film made its transatlantic journey.

The emotional weight of what to do with this trove outweighed actual physical weight. Polish libraries and archives were bombed and burned during both world wars. So many Polish intellectuals were targeted and murdered by German and Russian occupiers during WWII and, post-war, by the Soviets. 

These books represented the output of a precious, threatened resource. These boxes of books suddenly felt more valuable.

Efforts to rehome the books failed miserably. Keeping them was not an option. I, like you,  Cecylia, am committed to not overburdening Aleksandra, with personal detritus of my life, once I’ve expired.

This is my confession to you, Cecylia, if you can hear me, 11 years after your death: I pulled out every book, read every title and author’s name, flipped through the pages, and created a small pile of “keepers.”  

I then drove to the dump and began placing the books in a designated recycling bin. I cried as I did this. I cried for you. I cried for your sons. I cried for the looting, death and destruction of so many cultural treasures of my parents’ homeland. 

An employee working nearby, the one who used to give Aleksandra lollipops on our weekly dump runs when she was little, asked, “Are you OK?” Then, I told him about you and Poland and deep grief. 

I did my best, Cecylia. I hope you can forgive me.

One of the books I kept was by Grazyna Lipinska, a Polish educator who risked her life fighting  in the Polish underground during WWII. The book is titled, Jesli Zapomne o Nich (If I Forget About Them).

I will not forget about you.

________

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Uncle Tomek

~ kasia1965 ~ Leave a comment

Uncle Tomek winked his eye, offered a mischievous grin, and gestured for Aleksandra to follow him. I trailed behind, curiosity piqued and mind prepared to translate my uncle’s Polish to my five-year-old daughter’s English.

We followed Tomek to the bedroom he shared with my Aunt Genia, my mother’s oldest sister. Tomek knelt down and slid a small, cardboard box out from underneath the bed. What did we see? A brand new momma cat surrounded by mewling kittens. Tomek modeled gentleness, caressing the newly-arrived felines. Aleksandra followed, dipping her little hand into the warm, purring fuzziness. Shared delight and wonder transcended any linguistic barriers.

Tomek loved animals. He worked as a veterinary technician, riding his bicycle or getting lifts from farmers to tend to ailing cows, horses and goats on nearby farms. At home, he favored dogs, small breeds – terriers or pugs – and took pride in training them well. Tomek reveled in giving his LITTLE dogs BIG names like Cesarz (Emperor) and Tyran (Tyrant). He loved cats, too, as evidenced by the box under his bed.

Tomek and Genia built their beautiful, tidy home in Radgoszcz, a small farming village in southeastern Poland during the communist era. Securing cement and rebar amid chronic shortages required tapping into Poland’s then-black market. My uncle designed an advanced heating system. My aunt hand-stenciled walls in traditional Polish nature motifs and sewed lace curtains. I loved visiting them when I was a university student in Krakow. “My” room had a balcony overlooking their fruit trees and garden.

Tomek and Genia also shared a wonderful sense of humor. I loved witnessing their light-hearted banter. They cared deeply for each other. Tomek and Genia were unable to have children. My uncle once told me, “If we’d been able to have children, I’d have hoped to have a daughter like you.” Tomek & Genia taught me what it meant to be a loving aunt and uncle. Growing up in the U.S., I had no aunts, uncles, cousins or grandparents on the continent. Tomek and Genia helped fill a void I didn’t know I had.

Tomek would tease me that I talked too much during dinner. “The table is for eating,” he’d say. “We’ll enjoy conversation with tea and cake in the kawiarnia after dinner.” Kawiarnia means “cafe” in Polish – this is what Tomek called their living room. 

My aunt and uncle were good people. They worked and tended their garden. They helped their neighbors. Genia packed homemade sandwiches and jars of compote made from plums or strawberries for my journey back to school. Tomek, a man of precision, gathered eggs from their coop, wrapping them in elaborately engineered “constructions” of paper and string designed to withstand my cramped bus and train ride back to Krakow. 

Tomek was thirteen years old when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Within weeks, Radgoszcz experienced brutal German occupation and pacification. Tomek’s father, Jan, was a politically active farmer before the war, striving to improve standards of living for the community. Jan and Tomek joined the Polish underground as father and son, risking their lives to disrupt German occupation via covert acts of sabotage. 

Tomek’s father died at Auschwitz. Jan was arrested in the spring of 1943 and murdered by the Germans within weeks. My uncle never spoke to me about his father and the immense loss he endured when just a teenager.

I am left wondering why, during the 2026 International International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, German Diplomat and President of the United Nations General Assembly, Annalena Baerbach, acknowledged the suffering of  the Jews, Roma, Sinti, LGBTQ+ and people living with disabilities BUT LEFT OUT POLES. See text: https://www.un.org/pga/80/2026/01/27/pga-remarks-at-holocaust-memorial-observance-2026/

Annalena neglected to mention that Poles were the SECOND LARGEST GROUP OF DEPORTEES TO AUSCHWITZ, after Jews. An estimated 140,000-1500,000 Poles were sent to Auschwitz, with 70,000 dying there. Comparatively speaking, an estimated 21,000 Roma and Sinti and an estimated 15,000 Soviet prisoners died at Auschwitz. 

Clarifying this loss of life does not diminish recognition of the enormous loss of Jewish lives, estimated at 1 million, at Auschwitz. Actually, it provides a more accurate picture of the magnitude of German crimes.

I am left to wonder WHY German acknowledgement is lacking. My suspicion? Germans were socialized to believe Poles were untermenschen (subhumans) during WWII. Might it be that they have difficulty shaking this dehumanizing prejudice?

Jan Gondek, my Uncle Tomek’s beloved father, was living a life of meaning. He, too, deserves acknowledgement of his murder at Auschwitz.

Unacknowledged harm reverberates like so many waves of sadness, across generations. Annalena could have done better.

Source: https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/auschwitz-and-shoah/the-number-of-victims/

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Chernobyl: Forty Years Plus One Day

~ kasia1965 ~ 1 Comment

A soft rain fell in Krakow on Saturday morning, April 26, 1984 —  forty years and one day ago. I was a 21-year-old exchange student studying history at a university in southeastern Poland. I was an “American Capitalist” living behind the Iron Curtain.

I’d been socialized to navigate a communist system where economic hardships and an unjust political system invaded the everyday lives of Poles. I was privileged. I possessed a U.S. Passport emblazoned with a golden eagle. I could leave anytime I wanted. Poles needed permission to travel West. Political involvements were weighed and folks were investigated. Many Poles were denied passports by the government, trapped within their borders.

Shortages of basic consumer goods like toilet paper, razors and batteries prevailed. Like Pavlov’s dog, I’d jump into a line outside a shop and, only after securing my place, ask, “What is in the shop?” A robust queue indicated fleeting presence of highly coveted items. There might be offerings of meat or, perhaps even chocolate, something normally only available via our monthly ration cards. I remember standing in lines for kielbasa with just a few strands hanging on hooks when the stressed and often grumpy clerks announced “Juz, nie ma” —  the equivalent of “All out.” I’d leave the store empty-handed.

I also learned to surreptitiously collect and hide Solidarity’s pro-democracy flyers and newsletters. I sensed they’d be of historical significance when or if communism fell. I’d find them in our shared kitchen in the dorm. I’d slip them into my pocket and tuck them away in the suitcase stored under my bed. I never shared my “collection” with anyone, including my roommate.

Poland’s communist regime, pressed into Soviet lockstep under the weight of orders from Moscow, squelched civil liberties that we as Americans (used to?) take for granted such as free speech and freedom of assembly. The Pro-democracy Solidarity movement was forced underground. If caught with the contraband, I might be deported. My Polish classmates, if caught, might be arrested or forfeit highly-coveted places at the university. The stakes were much higher for them.

I did not know that at approximately 1:23 a.m. local time, the world’s worst nuclear disaster was unfolding. Five hundred miles northeast, about the distance from Burlington, Vermont to Washington, D.C., a Soviet-built power plant in Ukraine experienced a devastating accident. Reactor #4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sustained a catastrophic meltdown, with an explosion and fire releasing radioactive steam from its core. A massive cloud of Iodine-131 and Cesium-137 floated overhead, directed and dispersed on the whim of the wind. 

Soviet authorities remained silent.

Two days passed. 

The Soviets still remained silent. 

Science does not lie. 

Evidence surfaced.

On the wind.

In the air.

Amid the raindrops.

Eight hundred miles from Chernobyl, radiation sensors at Sweden’s Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant detected elevated readings two days later, on April 28, 1986. That same day, a monitoring station in Mikolajki, Poland, six hundred miles from Chernobyl, noted radiation levels were 550,000 times higher than the day before. 

Sweden was free to sound the alarm and they did, LOUDLY. Poland, as a Soviet satellite nation, could only offer a muted response as radioactive particulate landed on forests, farms, water sources and urban areas.  

The Soviets could no longer hide the accident. On April 29th, three days after the catastrophe, the Kremlin made an announcement. They said that there had been an accident, two individuals were killed, and the situation was “under control.” In reality, firefighters, many of whom would die of radiation poisoning, were trying to quell the flames and cap the devastated reactor to prevent further seepage of radioactive material. There would be far more deaths, including elevated cancer occurrences that continue to this day.

Word spread quickly in the dorm that there’d been some sort of nuclear accident near Kiev (today, Kyiv). I remember the uncertainty, the fear, and the anger I felt. We strained our ears to try to hear Radio Free Europe. Moscow intentionally scrambled the broadcast.  Bits and pieces of audio registered as “major nuclear accident” and “stay inside until radioactive cloud disperses.” Ironically, Radio Moscow, a propagandistic English-language radio station, registered crystal clear, reporting on a dance competition held over the weekend near Kiev, a mere eighty miles away from the plant.

The air felt heavy. The idea of going outside felt scary. I imagined tiny radioactive particles seeping into my lungs. Forty years and one day later, I still wonder about the impact. At least, I don’t glow in the dark. 

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Veteran’s Day: Soldiers, Known and Unknown

~ kasia1965 ~ 1 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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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.

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Note from Vienna

~ kasia1965 ~ 3 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

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What would George think?

~ kasia1965 ~ 2 Comments


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.

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