I am currently sitting at this incredible hole-in-the-wall place off Kraków’s Rynek called Gospoda “Koko,” which reminds me of a tiny farmhouse kitchen. Love! I spent about half an hour searching for the perfect place to have pierogi, piwo, and a place comfortable enough for me to blog, since this is my last evening in Poland. (Jestem bardzo smutna.*tear). Today I quickly realized, that although I love exploring on my own (Sidenote: I went to the Wawel Cathedral for the first time—sadly, no pictures were allowed—and it was probably one of the most magnificent churches I have seen. I was also able to visit the crypt and see where Queen Jagiełła, King Jan III Sobieksi, Tadeusz Kosciusko, Józef Piłsudski, Władysław Sikorski, and many other famous Poles are buried), it is difficult when finding places to eat. I quickly realized how awkward it was at the restaurant for lunch waiting for my food with nothing to do, so I have brought my computer to dinner (which I realize makes me look doubly lame—dateless and typing at a restaurant, but I must see it as accomplishing work, eating, and not awkwardly catching the eyes of those I was people-watching, cough cough, which did happen at lunch :/). Returning to the fellowship program, Tuesday (July 10) was our last full day in Kraków and its environs. We began the morning at the Jagiellonian University’s Center for Jewish Studies in Kazimierz. Professor Michał Gałas provided the first lecture entitled, “Jewish Culture and Religion in Poland,” which detailed Jewish history in Poland since the turn of the 13th century until the Holocaust. Professor Edyta Gawron, who, in addition to being a Professor of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian, was also one of the main contributors to the Museum of the Nazi occupation of Krakow on site of the former Schindler Factory, continued the discussion (“Jews in contemporary Poland”) with a fascinating presentation on Jews in Poland after the Holocaust, the pogroms, the waves of emigration, the antisemitic campaign of 1968, Solidarity, the imposition of martial law in 1981 until the fall of Communism, and concluded by describing communities which have begun to be openly Jewish again.
In the afternoon, we were to meet with Uwe and Gabi van Seltmann, authors of the recently published book, My Grandfather was Killed at Auschwitz, Mine was a Nazi. They were late to our meeting because they had to testify at the police station as witnesses to antisemitic remarks that were made at a restaurant Saturday night (the last night of the Jewish Cultural Festival!) in Kazimierz. Although rare (especially in this ‘Jewish’ district), antisemitic behavior sadly still exists, and we know from news the world over, it is not limited to Poland. Although they had less time to present because of the unfortunate incident, their presentation was profoundly impactful. Uwe's grandfather, Lothar von Seltmann, was an SS-man in Kraków during World War II, while Gabriela's grandfather Michał Pazdanowski was murdered at Auschwitz. Uwe and Gabriela met in Kraków, were married, and the search for information regarding their grandparents (especially in Uwe’s case), have caused familial pain and even isolation. For an outsider, to see two people, whose families two generations prior were mortal enemies, research and write a book on their experiences was beyond compelling.
[Quick pause: I am barhopping with my date, aka my computer]
Ok, I am back. Location: a small outside courtyard, light music, and, despite the smoking clientele, perfect. Back to Tuesday’s activities: We left the Jewish Community Center after our meeting with the van Seltmanns for a 40 minute van ride to the small community of Dolina Będkowska. What came next was a once in a lifetime experience. We were visiting the family home of Janina Rosciszewska, a non-Jewish Pole who was awarded (along with her parents) as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem. 70 years prior, in the very location our meeting was taking place, Janina’s family hid ten Jews this large house nestled in a beautiful green valley. Interestingly, the Rosciszewski’s were not the only ones hiding Jews in the village; Janina remembered that everyone felt that what they had something in common against the Germans, and that the village actually organized an alert system when the Germans were coming to protect the Jews. She also recalled that the local priest did not preach antisemitism in church and her father, a social activist and devoted Catholic, was always willing to help those in need.
Janina specifically spoke of the little Jewish boy, Paweł Wagner, whose father was already in Palestine before the war’s outbreak and whose mother was taken by the Germans during one of their many round-ups in the village. For the 6-year duration of the war, Paweł grew up with the Rosciszewski family, knowing Janina’s parents as his parents, and Janina as his sister. After the war, Paweł was taken from the family and smuggled to Palestine where he met a father he never knew, was forced to only speak Hebrew, and had to forget about the family he thought was his. Only when Paweł was an adult after his father died, was he given a box that held the remaining mementos of what once belonged to his Polish roots and Polish home. Only then, was he able to reconnect with the Rosciszewskis and help retrieve for them Yad Vashem’s highest honor.
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| Janina showing our group hand-drawn puppets that her family played with during the war. They were incredible. |
Lastly, Janina vividly
recalled a small battle that occurred in January 1945 between the Germans and
the Russians on opposite hills, her house in the middle. And here I was looking
out at these same hills, where this battle once occurred, the forest where they
men and boys would run to when the Germans were coming so they would not be
taken away for forced labor, from the window in the same living room that
hidden Jews once lived… so surreal…
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| Looking out from Janina's home. |
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