Katowice and Rybnik, Poland -- Family History August 4, 2001
My parents were both born in what is today Poland. To get to my dad's home town, Rybnik, you first fly to my mom's home town, Katowice. Katowice with its 300,000 residents is twice as big as Rybnik but not anywhere near as attractive. Like much of Poland, Katowice has too many dingy, dilapidated, communist-style, rectangular buildings. Though perhaps functional (I can't say one way or the other), these buildings are totally devoid of artistic, architectural, or design features. They're quite a contrast to the lovely buildings made of dark and white-washed wood, the bright colorful gardens and the many over-flowered window boxes that dot Bavaria, our current home.
There are a couple of
reasons to stop in Katowice on the way to Rybnik. One is that it has several 3-star hotels;
Rybnik has none. I'd previously stayed in one of these and
done the
70-minute taxi ride back and forth to Rybnik each day. But this year, I
planned to stay three
days, so instead took a room at a local conference center 10K outside Rybnik.
The center is adjacent to a
nice-sized lake, has tennis courts, a few picnic tables, trees and grass to sit
on. My 2-room "suite" is small and very simply furnished; it has 3 single beds, a TV
(Polish-only channels) and a half-refrigerator. Cost: $30 a day.
My second reason for stopping in Katowice is to visit the Holocaust memorial monument, pictured here. My Tante Blima and my Tante Itka are responsible for its construction. Together they lobbied, spearheaded, financed, and oversaw the design and building of this monument. It's dedicated to the thousands of Katowice Jews (including their mother and baby sister) who lost their lives in War II. Coming to Poland and especially Katowice is always sobering, forcing me to reflect on my family's losses and the murders of so many innocents. Although it sometimes seems that the Third Reich's atrocities happened ages ago, it's really such recent history. Three of my mother's sisters survived the concentration camps, and two are still alive and healthy today.
As for Rybnik, my dad was born and grew up
here. The 800-year old town is built around a few hills and ponds and now spreads out
into suburbs.
Winding one-way streets eventually
lead to the large, picturesque, pedestrian-only, Marketplace square, which
includes an attractive yellow Town Hall built in 1833. Here upscale shops,
renovated old apartment buildings, outdoor cafes (with customers drinking alcohol at all hours of the day) and
a recently-added McDonald's (also with outdoor seating and red canvas umbrella) provide reasons to
congregate.
Before WW II, my dad's family was well off. They owned a factory, a retail clothing store, and several buildings in Rybnik, including one just off the town square and another, a small apartment building, two blocks away. My dad lived on the third floor, his parents on the floor below.
Then came Hitler, Fascism and the unleashing of unmitigated anti-Semitism in Poland. My grandparents were killed by the Nazis. My parents miraculously survived the war by hiding in the attic of house owned and occupied by a Polish family. This family including their two children risked their lives to hide my parents. Though they were paid for taking this risk, it was clearly a heroic deed.
In 1997 when I went to Poland with my mom, the thirty-something grandchildren of the couple that hid my parents came to our hotel with their families. Over the years, mom had regularly sent money and goods to first their parents and now to them. Whenever she came to Poland, she'd see them and their families. After their visit, she told me that the young boys (aged 11 and 13,) -- the great grandchildren of the couple who hid them -- didn't know who she really was. They thought she was just an aunt from America. Because Poland is still anti-Semitic today, their parents were ashamed to, or afraid to, tell the boys the story of what their grandparents had done.
After the war, my parents started their second life with almost nothing. In 1950 we emigrated to New York, where my father worked for several years loading large cartons onto trucks, and my mother made hats, getting paid by the piece. Eventually they learned some English, and saved and borrowed enough money to open a small children's clothing store. By then the properties in Rybnik had been in the hands of the communists for years and were pretty much forgotten.
Then,
40 years later after the fall of communism in 1989, it was theoretically possible to reclaim
property confiscated by the Nazis that had been "owned" by the
State. My dad had passed away, but my mom, a gutsy go-getter, went to Rybnik,
hired a lawyer and relentlessly kept the wheels of justice rolling. Eventually, a sympathetic judge
and a Rybnik court awarded her some of dad's property, including this small apartment building where
he spent his
youth. Mom was fortunate; recovering family assets in Poland is quite unusual.
There is at least one class-action lawsuit ("Garb vs. Poland")
working its way through the Polish courts
today trying to remedy this situation. It's hoped this suit will at least deter the
Polish government from selling off these stolen and now contested properties.
When my mom died, she left the property in Poland to my brother. Since he can't seem to get a passport, I go to Rybnik every so often to inspect the property and meet with the manager.
Aside from conducting business, my visits to Poland are an opportunity to reflect on my family origins and history. They are also a sober reminder to appreciate how truly lucky I am to be alive, and to be living the life I do.
To think: fifty-six years ago my parents, having been cloistered in an attic for over two years, were daily living in a world of terror, fearing discovery that would surely be followed by execution... And THEY were the lucky ones.
After World War II, anit-Semitism was rife in Poland; it was the only country in Europe where the citizens killed or intimidated the returning Jewish population. In the most notorious episode, in July 1946, residents of Kielce, including policemen, soldiers and boy scouts, murdered 80 Jews (1). For more See:
1. Jan T. Gross, Fear:
Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz, 2006, and
Felicity Blogh.
2. Poland and the
Jews
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/240805.html.