Seeking Illumination, Part II

Poland is still amazing. Today we're in Warsaw, but I wanted to write about my experience yesterday in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) searching for places related to my paternal grandfather's family.

My grandfather grew up in the town, where he apprenticed as a monument maker with his grandmother's side of the family, who were stone masons. He stayed in Oswiecim for a little while after the war broke out, and then was taken to a labor camp. He went from labor camp to labor camp during the war, and after several marches at the end of the war, was liberated in April 1945.

From his oral history, I knew that he helped bury the torahs from Oswiecim's Great Synagogue right before the Germans came. I also knew the address of his family's apartment, and that the family of my great-great-grandmother, the stone masons, made lots of tombstones in the Jewish Cemetery.

An intern from the Auschwitz Jewish Center took us on a tour of the city. The second stop was the former site of the Great Synagogue, on the former Jewish street. He told us that about 10 years ago a survivor said that people buried things from the synagogue right before the Germans came, and so a group excavated the site and found about 400 Jewish artifacts. I told him that Zayde helped bury the torahs. It was pretty amazing to see some of the items they found in the museum, since it's very possible that he himself buried them.

A few minutes later we were on Jagielloinski (his street), now Wladyslawa Jagielly. Unfortunately, there is no 19 Jagielloniski anymore. The numbers jumped from 17 on one block to 23 on the next. In between there are corner buildings which have addresses of the cross street, and a parking lot. So my guess is that the building was knocked down, although the numbers on the even side of the street were consistently 10 lower than the numbers on the odd side. The street may have been renumbered, so I could have been completely off.

But like in Zarnowiec (my grandmother's town), every local that Jarka (my program director) talked to to try to figure out which may be the right building was very nice and willing to help. Since this time I was with my whole group, everyone really enjoyed the search and people were even arguing about which may be the right building and why. It was really a group effort.

We walked through the market square and then to the Jewish Cemetery, which is on the other side of town. I found two stones done by Wulkans, my great-great grandmother's family. Our guide said that all of the stones were found around the city and brought back to the cemetery after the war, so the stones are not related to the graves directly below them.

It was another great family history experience, and one that really does clash with what I'd heard about anti-Semitic Poles before I came.