For this post, I do not have any photos to post. The video I made of my first visit to Jozefow is at the bottom of the post.
I would lay there tossing and turning all night. The noise from outside was so incredibly loud that earplugs and putting my head under the pillow simply did not work. I tried sleeping in the lounge of the hostel and the worker came to wake me up and tell me I couldn’t be there. We got into a mini-argument about how helpless we all are from the noise situation. The plan was to take the train to Jozefow the next day. I wanted to be well-rested and alert. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. I wasn’t even sure Jozefow had a train station, but there was some sort of train station that had the name Jozefow in it so it couldn’t be too far. (I was wrong.) Because of the single track, the trains do not come frequently. I was going to take the 11am train to arrive in Jozefow by 1pm. It would mean I would have to rush there to catch the 3pm bus to Bilgoraj to them catch the bus to Zamosc. I would later learn that the connections to these towns are much better via the minibus system but I would have to learn that on my own as there was no one to talk to in the hostel except a recently homeless Polish lady, my roommate.
Still tossing and turning, I saw there was a train at 7am that would bring me to Jozefow at 9am. This would give me way more time to explore. As it was now 6am and the screaming and music had stopped, I was already awake. I decided to haul ass to the train station and make this happen. From this point on, I took a documentary video of my experience in Jozefow. While on the train, I saw that the station I wanted to get off at was called Jozefow Rosztatanski… which references the forest called Rosztatanski and you would be let out in the middle of the forest, 3.5km away from the town. The next stop with the beautiful Dlugi Kat, is only 1.5km from Jozefow and on the main road (not in the middle of the forest). I explained to the conductor I would be getting off one stop later than I had paid for in my ticket and he charged me another 2 zlotys (50 cents). The train stopped and the conductor helped me and another man with luggage jump directly onto the tracks. Oh boy, I knew this was going to be quite the adventure.
The walk between Dlugi Kat and Jozefow was beautiful. I passed a lumber mill and it smelled really lovely. I saw lots of old people riding bikes on the new bike path that the EU helped build. As I approached the old market square, I knew I was in the right place. I saw the new fountain the EU built there too. I was getting really nervous about going to the Town Hall. I had written them a few emails over the past few weeks requesting records and having simple correspondence with them about making a visit. One lady named Alessandra wrote back welcoming to visit. I’m not sure they expected me to actually come by. I wrote her an email earlier that morning letter her know I would be arriving in the afternoon. She did not write back so I wasn’t sure if she saw it. Their emails indicated that my grandfather’s birth certificate could not be found even though there are Grafs listed in other books. I wrote to her that I would like to visit them and thank them for the time they took to look anyway.
I didn’t have much cash on me at that time. I knew at some point I would have to get money to get food and pay for my buses to the other towns. I was wondering how long to wait before I go to the town hall. I also wanted to see the synagogue and the cemetery. I didn’t want to see the mass execution site in the forest. No thanks.
I recognized the town hall from photos online. I went into the very small lobby and saw there was a public toilet. I peed. Then there was a door to the Ursad Stanu Cywilnego. That’s “Civil Records Office”. There was a small plaque with the names Stanislaw and Alessandra. I had emails from both of them. I wasn’t sure what to do to go inside. Did I need an appointment? They didn’t write back to my emails that day… I saw a mom and daughter enter the town hall and do a small knock on the door and then just walk right in. I figured I’ll just follow them in and see what happens. It’s a super small room with two desks. Stanislaw is behind one desk and Alessandra is behind another. There is a small table for clients to sit at and wait, I guess. The mom and daughter ask a question to Stanislaw and Alessandra asks me in Polish if she can help me. I am prepared with my cell phone with the emails we sent open and I practiced how to say “I am Jonathan from America, I’ve just come to say hello!” Alessandra responded with big eyes and a somewhat happy but nervous mix of excitement. She starts yelling for Magda.
Magda arrives. She has red hair with tight curls, a banging figure, a beautiful rack with cleavage and a ton of makeup. She’s smiling ear to ear. She just wants to help. She’s the only English speaker in the town, she tells me. Suddenly, she’s pulling books off the shelf like crazy and yelling out names of Grafs. Many of them are familiar. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do. I open up my family tree on my cell phone to help them focus on some names. I’m realizing that the names they are calling out are the Polish names, not the Yiddish names or the Hebrew names. I want every record. I’m telling them I just want everything but they are looking for “Joseph”. He was born in 1921 I tell them. His name is nowhere to be found, but I know that, they already emailed me and told me they couldn’t find it. Next thing you know they are looking at the books from the 1930s. In the 1934 book, they name Esther, Channah and Joseph. Those are two of my great-aunts and my grandfather. Esther survived and started a family in Israel. Channah perished in Belzec with her husband. Joseph is my grandfather. Tears came to my eyes. I did not cry. I smiled. Big, big smile. I think Alesandra and Madga were thrilled that they did not have to do anymore looking. We were all satisfied with what was found.
I paid for official copies and Magda wanted to chat. We were talking about what the town was like before the war. Magda said the Jews were rich and that my family most certainly was. Oh boy. Here we go. Is this an education moment? I told her, “From what my family tells me, we were not wealthy.” She seemed to disagree. I don’t know why it makes people feel so good to decide that all Jews are rich. Another argument for another time. She mentions the Isaac Bashevis Singer festival. She tells me about the part of the region where she lives. She explains that it’s hard to get jobs for people like her. She has an engineering degree. I taped the moments afterward. I was so happy. I got what I came for: my grandfather’s birth certificate. I thought it was lost to the war. I had some sort of proof that we are really from there. I had some of this proof that I felt like I needed that the war really happened, that it was all real. The stories, the pain, the torture.
I went to the ATM but not before accidentally going to the cash exchange place first accidentally. I went to the library in the former synagogue structure. I was now having interactions with locals. No one was really outrightly friendly. It isn’t a place where tourists visit frequently. In the library, I wanted to thank the staff for maintaining the structure and introducing myself. I’m looking to make connections to the town. The old lady librarian didn’t speak English and pretty much ignored my cell phone with the translated Polish I wrote to her. A chill “cool mom” with tattoos and an exposed midriff was hanging out on the couch next to the librarian’s desk. She was like, “Hey I speak English, what do you want to say.” I told her why I was there. She says, “What you are American? I thought American people don’t care about Poland?” I told her that I’m an American that does care. Her reaction to me helped explain a bit of what I was experiencing. Polish people see themselves of victims as well. They feel neglected by the world. Of course, this is a rather foolish way to feel after receiving $60 billion in EU funds to rebuild the country. Every train station and platform is rebuilt or being rebuilt. Highways are being built. Public plazas have art and fountains. No one is being neglected in Poland. However, it’s the way they feel. So it must mean something.
I went to the cemetery. I tried to look for any tombstones with the name “Graf” on them. The place is in ruins. Some of them don’t have last names. I couldn’t find anything and I decided to just look at the cemetery as a memorial to the past. Besides, there were butterflies flying everywhere among the weeds. It felt very spiritual. I said Kaddish and a prayer in English, letting the lost souls know that there are survivors from this town and that the descendants from this town are doing just fine.
I headed back to the town hall where I would take the bus to Bilgoraj. It started to rain as I approached the bus stop. It just seemed like another moment of the day that happened at the right place and the right time. I wondered if there would be more.
I didn’t bother to go into the town of Bilgoraj. I don’t have any connections there. I was dropped off at the same bus station where I needed to transfer to the bus to Zamosc, so I didn’t want to veer too far. I asked the ticket lady about where to get the bus to Zamosc, in Polish, and she couldn’t understand the way I pronounced Zamosc. Whether it is Zamosh, Zamosht, Zamostz, Zamoshtz, it seems like everyone was pronouncing it different. However, I do know that if you want to say “I go to Zamosc”, you have to decline the noun so it would be “Ida na Zamoyska”. The ticket lady kinda yelled at me in frustration pointing to where the bus would be. Really unnecessarily rude. The rain was getting harder. There was a little cafe before the ticket counter. There was a line out the door. The cafe only seemed to sell zapiekanka. That’s the open face mushroom-cheese pizza. I hadn’t actually tried one yet! I was supposed to in Krakow but I hated my Krakow experience so much, I didn’t bother to try new food there. I watched the lady workers bring out tray after tray of zapiekanka and fold in a special way and put it in tin foil. She would put ketchup on them before folding them. They were toasted but the bread was still soft. The cheese was gooey. These guys looked really damn good. I got one with a coke. It was fucking fantastic. Is it possible that I experienced the best that Bilgoraj has to offer in the shitty mean bus station? I would later read that Bilgoraj has some sort of rebuilt synagogue that is considered really controversial. Also some road was recently built in Bilgoraj that bulldozed right through the old Jewish cemetery. Maybe it was better just to have the zapiekanka.
The bus to Zamosc came and we had a quick ride. By the time we arrived at the Zamosc bus station the rain had mostly stopped. I went to the bus station to see how I could get back to Lublin. The main station only had a handful of buses to other places I never heard of. This didn’t make any sense. Zamosc was a major city, how do people get around here? The worker pointed across the street to the minibus parking lot where there was a massive billboard advertising the schedule for all of the minibuses to every town in the region including Jozefow and Lublin. So, after all, I did not need to go through Bilgoraj to get to Zamosc but I guess I would know for next time. I went to the local bus shelter to take the bus to the old town. I asked a local girl waiting if the bus there goes to the old town, I asked in Polish. I got the same cold reaction I had been getting the entire time in Lublin. People seemed to be really ashamed of their bad English but also were kind of mean about it. You can just say, “I’m sorry I don’t speak” and smile or something. Someone else near her overheard me and helped me with a smile. It seems like there really are two worlds here: one that is open to foreigners and tourism and one that just wants nothing to do with “outsiders”. You know how many times I wanted to tell these mean people that my fucking family is from here for hundreds of years? From my first meeting at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, I now had the Grafs in Jozefow through 1830. Don’t fuck with me.
The old town of Zamosc was perfect. Really perfect. It’s the perfect European town that the Zamoyskis wanted. They got it. Really a stunning masterpiece of urban planning and architecture. The red brick old city wall is surrounded by a beautiful green grass moat. The town square is framed by multicolored Italianate buildings and has a gorgeous clock tower in its center. I sat in the square and had a vodka soda with lime. I called my parents and told them the good news of the day that I found the birth certificate. I was staring at the beauty of the town square. Something was telling me I would be back very soon. I felt connected to it. I did not know why. The buses back to Lublin were every two hours at that point. I didn’t really have much of a plan so I figured I’d finish up the drink and head out quickly.
On the bus ride back to Lublin, I had a lot of time to contemplate all of the things that had happened that day. I was thinking about how happy I was that I found the documents. I was thinking about the helpful people like Magda and how my expectations were totally opposite from the reality. I thought the people at the USC would tell me I needed an appointment and shun me. Or tell me they don’t speak English. Or tell me I didn’t bring proof that I’m related to Joseph Graf. The sun began to peak out behind the clouds. To me: it was a sign. Even though not everyone had been nice to me, I was getting what I wanted: an authentic experience, a connection to my ancestral villages, interactions with locals.