Until next time, Poland!

In late-June and early-July 2024 I went to Poland for the fourth time. As a result of two life-affecting events in the early 2010s, my attention was drawn to the country of Poland. In 2012 I started volunteering at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (the Museum). At that time, it was something worthwhile to do to occupy my time in retirement. I’m still there every Thursday afternoon with a great group of fellow volunteers who I’m glad to call friends. I think I can safely say for our group that it’s become a mission rather than simply something worthwhile to do with our time.

At around the same time, I received some genealogical information from cousins in the San Jose, California area that indicated that my paternal ancestors emigrated to my birthplace of London in the late-1800s from Biala Podlaska, a town in Eastern Poland very near to the border with Belarus. I also learned that our Polish name was Kochanek which became Conick, and then Connick. How this name-change occurred is the subject of various versions of family folklore which I won’t get into here. These discoveries really piqued my interest as I’d grown up thinking we all came from “Russia”. Of course, when they came to London, that part of Poland was part of the Russian Empire. Nonetheless, as a point of personal preference, I was, and am, quite pleased to learn that I was Polish and not Russian.

All of this persuaded me to visit the person then in charge of the Holocaust survivors’ registry at the Museum to see what I could find out about my family’s “Poland years”. I was given contact information for a gentleman in Urbana, Illinois and, long story short, after a couple of email exchanges he sent me a multi-page PDF which traces our family tree back to 1775. It also turns out that I and “Mr. Urbana” are distantly related (aren’t we all?). Given the foregoing, and the fact that the work of the Museum inevitably involves Poland, I couldn’t wait to visit this mysterious country that most people I know don’t really know about.

So it was that in 2013, armed with Rick Steves’ excellent travel guide on Gdansk, Warsaw and Krakow, I went alone to Poland not knowing a word of the language or anyone who lives there. As I’ve told anyone who’ll listen, when I arrived at Chopin International Airport in Warsaw, I felt a deep and instant connection with the country. It has been that way whenever I visit Poland and rather than try to explain it, which I can’t, I just let it wash over me and enjoy the experience. On this occasion, I went to Warsaw and Krakow and established contact with the lovely people at the Krakow JCC.

Since that first visit, I went back in 2016 with a couple I know from Washington D.C. in which I brought my massive expertise to bear as the itinerary meister. Another wonderful visit with many highlights among which were: Zubrowka Bison Grass vodka; the resultant occasional blur; a ton of laughs; and, attendance at the then-largest Shabbat Dinner in Poland since WW II, along with memorable and emotional visits to the Wawel, Polin Museum, the area of the former Warsaw Ghetto, the JHI, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the last night of the Krakow Jewish Culture Festival. This was particularly enjoyable for me as my travel companions are not Jewish and had no real connection to the Holocaust or Jewish culture (other than my kvetching), and they were gob smacked by Poland and the intense Jewish history we imbibed. My friends are both retired teachers for whom the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge are driving forces, so I knew they would get a lot from the trip. For me, the entire experience was especially uplifting.

In 2023 I was privileged to be part of a group that visited Gdansk, Warsaw and Krakow under the auspices of the Museum. The camaraderie and good humor among the group members was outstanding, and the quality of history teachings along with the choice of venues visited was unparalleled. We visited many of the places mentioned in the previous paragraph, and also the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery. Time did not permit visits to the Wawel and the Krakow Jewish Festival, the latter due to the timing of the trip not coinciding with the festival. This was a serious historical trip which included emotional visits to the camps at Stutthof, Treblinka, Sobibor and Auschwitz-Birkenau. This was a highly rewarding and exhausting trip in every way. An additional bonus was the hosting by The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw of a dinner with our Ambassador to Poland, The Honorable Mark Brzezinski. As an added bonus, my fellow travelers were a joy to be with.

This brings me to my visit in 2024. In this case, I was in the preparatory stages of another solo visit to Poland. That was until I happened to receive an email from The Taube Center in Warsaw about an upcoming trip to Poland. During the pandemic, there was a series of zoomed lectures from Taube called Taube Talks which a fellow volunteer from the Museum put me on to. These were talks about Jewish life in Poland featuring various academic experts, and moderated by Helise Lieberman of Taube in Warsaw. This was among the things that helped get me through the desperate period of the pandemic. So, when I received their email regarding the Poland tour, I was inclined to give it a good look.

One of the best decisions I’ve made in recent memory was to sign up for this Taube tour of Poland. A small group of fellow travelers convened in Warsaw in late June 2024 under the guidance of Taube’s Helise, Aleksandra Makuch and Jakub Lysiak to spend a few days there covering the major Jewish sites of interest and meeting up with, and enjoying the hospitality of, the folks at the Warsaw JCC. There’s a subtlety about the Taube tour that bears mentioning, namely that the emphasis is on growing Jewish life in Poland. This was emphasized when we met with Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland at Warsaw’s famous Nozyk Synagogue. Rabbi Schudrich has been a driving force for the growth of the post-war, post-Communism Polish Jewish Community since the 1990s. Our traveling historian, Tomasz Cebulski provided considerable and valuable historical commentary, context and knowledge to the group throughout the tour – as he did the previous year when accompanying the tour with the Museum.

Next stop Krakow. Our excellent accommodation was just off the rynek glowny (main square). At one lunch in the main square I sat next to a fellow Brit, David Tilles, whose family came from Krakow and who happens to be, like me, a recovering accountant. Interestingly, David Tilles’ son Daniel is the editor-in-chief of an excellent weekly newsletter, Notes from Poland, which I have been getting for a few years. The group had the good fortune to be in Krakow during the Jewish Cultural Festival and were treated to VIP passes enabling us to enjoy some really great music.

And, as a bonus, we got to meet Aleksandra’s dad Janusz Makuch who is the inspiration and force behind this annual festival since its inception.

Most striking for me during this tour were the visits to Auschwitz-Birkenau and, on our last day, two former shtetls Pinczow and Chmielnik. In each town we were shown a former synagogue where attempts have been made to restore them. It was personally heartbreaking for me to see first hand the desecration of the Jewish cemetery at Pinczow as evidenced by the retaining wall to the shul’s courtyard using fragments of broken, recovered gravestones. One of many throughout Poland, I suppose.

The next day, we bade farewell to the wonderful Taube folks and our travel companions as we dispersed to points far and wide. This was a really meaningful experience for me.

I did not go directly home to the States, instead making the trip I had always wanted to make to my paternal ancestral hometown of Biala Podlaska. This town in Eastern Poland is easily accessible from Warsaw. It was not a long stay in Biala, a one-night stopover. But it was a visit crammed with activity in my search for remnants of a once-thriving Jewish community. This was greatly assisted by two people who deserve special mention. I had been introduced to Lukasz Kukawski the previous year when the Museum tour visited Sobibor as Lukasz is from Biala. We agreed to keep in touch in case I would make the trip to Biala at some point in the future. Thus, I shared my plan with Lukasz who very kindly drove up from Sobibor in the early evening of my first day there. Lukasz had set up a meeting with Cezary Nowogrodzki, a local historian in Biala, and acted as interpreter during our initial meeting. This consisted of a walking tour of the streets and back-alleys of Biala where some interesting discoveries were made.

In the photo below we see a doorframe with an indentation where a mezuzah had once been. In its own way it seems to me to be a metaphor for the fate of Jewish life in Poland and elsewhere in Europe as a result of the Holocaust. A once firmly embedded 900+ year culture has been ripped out by Nazi Germany in a few short years.

Cezary told us of the Zilberberg family while standing outside what had been their home before the Holocaust. The story went that the patriarch had been a blacksmith who, remarkably, changed careers and became a dentist. He, his wife and son were deported to Auschwitz. Two family members died in transit and the other was murdered at Auschwitz.

The picture below is of the “stumbling stones” outside their house, commemorating the fact that this family had once lived there, and telling us of their fate.

Their house is now a music school, and while we were outside talking, a music teacher came out and invited us in for a look around and an impromptu mini concert. I remarked to him that his English was flawless, at which point he told us that he’s from Belarus but spent 12 years in London. Who’d have thought that a visit to Biala would result in such a chance meeting?

And here’s the front entrance of the house in question.

Our tour with Cezary took us to the site of the remnants of the Jewish cemetery. As can be observed, there are only a few gravestones remaining and the grounds are in need of cleaning up.

And here’s a menorah overlooking the cemetery.

Lukasz had to leave that evening to go home, and so I was unable to share a couple of beers with him and Cezary as I was hoping to do. Next time Lukasz.

The next day I met up with Cezary and due to the advanced practice of arm waving and Google Translate we were able to communicate effectively enough. Cezary took me to the local library where I met with the lovely ladies who work there. It was a joy. Unfortunately, there wasn’t really enough time to get stuck in and look for records pertaining to my ancestors, but at least I know where the library is now.

Then we went to a very interesting local museum depicting the history of the area.

At that point it was time for me to catch my train back to Warsaw, so Cezary pointed me in the direction of the station. One night in Warsaw and then my flight back to Washington DC. This was a very eventful two weeks in Poland.

And let’s not forget about the great food.

Do następnego razu, Polsko.

Dave Connick – September 2024.