My guide, Krzysztof Malczewski, more fondly known as "Chris," met me in the lobby of my Lodz hotel this morning, exactly at 8 a.m. Chris was my guide through Poland last year, so seeing him again was a "sight for sore eyes." I use this expression because Chris is fond of learning American idioms, but it is also an accurate description. I really enjoy his friendship. Without Chris' expert guidance and sensitivity, I would never have been able to write the book about my parents.
We must have talked for two hours over breakfast while we caught up on each other's news. Chris is a great talker, and I love his accent. You remember the characters from Rocky and Bullwinkle? Chris sounds like Boris. He has a great ear for English and can remember and use new expressions nimbly and often inventively. He catches his occasional mistakes, such as "I have my wall to the back," before I can offer a correction--not that I would. I think his mistakes are charming, and they remind me of my mother's entanglements with English.
I do my best to speak Polish with the few fragments that I have learned, but people here either smile or laugh when I talk. This, of course, is my mother's revenge since I made fun of her English.
Chris and I had a successful day. We first headed to the Lodz town hall where Chris charmed the local record keepers into obtaining my mother’s birth certificate—as well as those of her brothers and sisters. This is a very big deal because I am only entitled to a copy of the original of my mom’s record, not to originals of her siblings’ records. I could get an abstract of those—but what’s the point? Chris was my advocate, explaining my Holocaust history, and after we spoke with several higher-ups and signed numerous forms, we were promised the originals within 24 hours!
We then headed about an hour southeast to the town of Tomaszow Maszowieki where some records from the Galas family can be found. I was not surprised to find that the archivists (see picture) had a large file on me since I have been emailing them for more than a year. It was this archive that gave me my initial start on the Galas family tree, but I have been using Google Polish to communicate with this office. In addition to communication issues, my bank in Chapel Hill could not seem to manage sending a bank transfer ($40 for each failed effort), so my new request for family records languished in their office until I arrived.
Just to give you an idea of how poorly Google Translate can sometimes be, when I wrote to the archives asking when my records would arrive (assuming my bank wire went through), the translation of the response was “Stand by your mailbox with calmness. She is arriving soon.” My English to Polish translations must have been equally amusing and, I am sure, quite stupid.
I had hoped a waiting document would solve a family mystery, only to discover that I had the document in my possession for more than a year. It is in Cyrillic, so I did not know that I had what I needed. Once that confusing issue was resolved, another mystery reared its head. Fortunately, Chris was intuitive to guess that the answer also was in this Archive office, and within 10 minutes, the puzzle was resolved. I will not tell you here what the mystery was—it is information that my family waiting for me in Sweden must hear first.
Every record office has its own bureaucracy. At this Archive, five people waited on us “hand and foot,” bringing us water and coffee and tome after tome of records in a shopping cart. The chief director, Mr. Wrobel, came in to meet the Google woman who caused him so much grief, but he seemed happy to meet me. The office staff were kind and interested people. Several of the clerks looked at my extensive Galas family tree—22 pages taped together-- and seemed genuinely interested in my search. It took us more than three hours to complete our work there.
After the archives, we stopped for a traditional Polish meal where Chris and I both enjoyed cold beet soup—delicious! (See picture) Family tree research is very exhausting, so we felt it was necessary to restore our energy by eating a big meal. This is typical when I am with Chris—a good breakfast and a good dinner. That’s it. He works a twelve-hour day with me, and when we come back to the hotel, he has to make phone calls for other clients. We don’t have time or interest in another meal.
After our meal, we headed to nearby Piotrkow Trybunalski, the seat of a significant Hassidic Jewish population there since the 1700s. Several families from this town have contributed numerous beautiful memorials to their ancestors and have renovated the synagogue (which is now the town library.) Earlier this month, a number of these families came to celebrate their roots here.
We drove a short distance to the cemetery where several Dobrzynskis are buried. I am not sure how they are related to me yet; I just know that they are. Since this branch of my mother’s tree was very religious, it doesn’t surprise me that they wound up in this town of very famous rabbinical scholars whose cemetery stones tell their histories as “tzaddiks” (wise leaders).
The cemetery’s keeper is 70 years old. Her late husband and son both carved headstones here, and she does her best to manage this cemetery which she boastfully claims is older than the one in Lodz. In fact, this cemetery is relatively well-maintained, with distinct stepping stones and paths. But nature has taken its course—it, too, is overgrown and the stones are mostly unreadable, worn with age. The Nazis also destroyed many of the stones, using them for lining their private swimming pool and for other construction projects.
The cemetery is also the resting place for two mass graves, and they are clearly marked with well-maintained monuments. The cemetery keeper surprises me by reading Hebrew aloud from the stones. She is self-taught and keeps an inventory of those who are buried here. I cannot find my relatives, but I may return tomorrow after we go to the local archives to get more information.
On the way back to Lodz, Chris played a CD for me--Klezmer music! The man is a freak!
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