These are Grandpa’s towns. They are in the Masovia województwo. I spent a long weekend with Pawel and his wife Kasia touring around the region.

Pawel and I had may chats in 2010-2011. He contacted me on JewishGen in 2010 where I uploaded my family tree back in 2004. The story is fascinating. He found an envelope in his great grandmother’s attic. He was cleaning it out as she had recently died. The envelope was addressed to her. There was no letter in it. The return address was to my great grandmother Nesha Skuza, in Brooklyn from 1958.

We shared the parts of each other’s stories that we knew. I knew that from Przasnysz, as the war ramped up, the family made the decision to flee and stopped by relative’s villages, including Glinojeck, on the way to Bialystock. Along the way, they encountered all sorts of righteous people, ignorant people and those filled with anger and hatred. The Nazis were in the process of absorbing Poland and war was on everyone’s minds. Pawel’s story is that his great grandmother hid some Jews at some point who were fleeing. The family was a mother with four children. This describes the situation with my family. It could very well have been us. My grandfather had family in Glinojeck and we know they stopped there. Pawel’s great grandmother lived in Glinojeck. His mother currently lives there today. We settled on that. We have a connection of some sort. We do not know every detail and I think we will never know. We decided to continue with our relationship based on what we know.

We had finally deduced and “confirmed” that his great grandmother was friendly to Jewish people and probably hid Grandpa and his family for some period of time as they were heading east. I reached again out to Pawel, who I had contacted in the winter letting him know that I may be in Europe this summer.   I let Pawel know my arrival date in Warsaw and he was incredibly happy for me. We started texting every day leading up to the arrival, while I was still in Croatia. He started getting more personal with me and let me know what a big deal this is for him.  I shared with him that this is a big deal for me too.

Arriving in Mlawa with all of this info, knowing I wouldn’t have time to process it just felt like a giant explosion waiting to happen in my brain.  Except, it was like an explosion of glitter and rainbows. I couldn’t wait to process all of this data. Pawel greeted me on the train platform with a nervous hug.  He was shaky. We tried speaking basic English to each other and it kind of worked. It was kind of painful for both of us, I think. He asked me what I wanted to do, if I wanted to just stay at home or see the town of Mlawa and visit the cemetery.  Cemetery, it is. When we got there, we saw the large ten commandments style memorial slabs, made up of broken tombstones. There was a tall fence surrounding the site, a commemoration plaque and lots of tall grass. The cemetery is on a small hill. You feel a little higher when you are there.  I kind of felt like crying, but not really.

I was sad that I was seeing something so sad.  At the same time, I did not know what Mlawa was.  I just knew it was town between the towns of Glinojeck, Pszanyz, Rypin and Ciechanow.  I would not find out until weeks later that my great-great grandfather Simcha Szczygelski was born there and buried there, most likely.  I did not want to cry in front of Pawel after just meeting him. Also, I did not feel a personal connection to the place. There was nothing from Grandpa’s videos (when he visited in 1999) that struck me as familiar.  I did not know Pawel well at that point and I wasn’t about to be a grown man crying while he stares at me not knowing what to do. We moved on.

When we arrived at Pawel’s house, I met his wife Kasia.  She was busy in the kitchen preparing dinner but there was already appetizers on the table: small sausages, pickles, crackers and ice cold lemon-infused water.  I would be just fine with this cuisine. Dinner was to be chicken and pork shnitzel. This was just the beginning of the feast for the weekend. Kasia didn’t speak any English.  Their beautiful daughter Hania was 5. Tomek was 6 months old. I could only really communicate with Pawel and even his English was not really that good.

Later on in the evening, Pawel brought out the vodka.  We discussed the plan for the next day. We would “see a synagogue”.  I guess it’s a big deal because there aren’t too many synagogue buildings left intact. 

Earlier in the afternoon, we had driven around Mlawa.  I did not know at the time that my great-great grandfather Simcha Szczygelski would have records from Mlawa.  I thought I had no connection to this town. Pawel was, in his own way, explaining to me that the people of Rypin, Ciechanow, Glinojeck, Praznysz and Mlawa are all intertwined.  He pointed out all of the old wooden houses still around. Because the pre-war Jewish population was so high, and records of home ownership exist (that make note of the religion), Pawel was pointing out which houses were Jewish-owned.  He looked down upon the history of Polish people who moved into the abandoned Jewish houses. It seems like those that did that were the poorest and they still haven’t invested much to make these pre-war houses look improved at all. They are still poor, maybe?

Vodka really helped.  Pawel and I got less tense with each other.  He stopped shaking and his speech became more fluid.  He expressed to me that this was a really important thing for him.  He explained to me the story of his estranged family. He does not really know much about his father’s side.  Like my family, there are many mysteries. I repeated to him that this is important for both us of and that we are family now.  “We are now cousins or maybe even brothers.” We toasted our vodka-soda-lemon cocktails and smiled. We started revisiting the story of how we came into contact with each other and he shared his family lore.  I shared our side. Yes, we had already discussed this online but now we were talking about it in person for the first time.

It seems they have a story of his great-grandmother Genovefa hiding a family of Jewish people from nearby: 4 children and a mother.  The father either wasn’t there or the man they were with was not the father. This seems to align with the story of Grandpa Herbie and his mother Nesha with three other children.  Papa Jack (Jakub Szczygiel) had already left the family to figure out things on his own. I’m not sure that we know the real reason why he left the family. I think there are more hints in Grandpa’s testimony videos.  After we shared, we felt more connected. I actually do not even care what the real story is. If his great-grandmother ended up hiding another family, not ours, then I do not want to know. It isn’t important to me who his family hid.  Pawel and I are connected.  He is a Polish person who cares about Jewish heritage in Poland and his connection to Poland has a multiethnic, multicultural historical narrative. 

He starts asking me about members of my family.  “Where was Aaron born?” “What is our relationship to Liba [Laura]?”  I momentarily forget that Pawel has been to the civil records offices of his neighboring towns looking for our records.  We already have Grandpa’s birth certificate. Grandpa got it in the 80s. Pawel is the research here and he wants to know.   

Pawel started saying, as we were driving around the towns and countryside, things that were almost mythical: “something is missing here”, “where are the Jews”, “there used to be Jews here”, “the Jews that lived here were rich”, “the Jews that lived here were poor”, “the Tzadik of … said …” - wait, did he just say Tzadik?  Like tzedakah? Yes, but that’s not what he’s referring to. I ask him to repeat. I search Google. He’s referring to the story of the mythical “Tzadik” of Hassidim Judaism. Before this conversation, I did not know anything about this and had never heard of a Tzadik in this context. You can imagine my brain is spinning now because I’m meeting a Polish person who knows this really specific thing about Judaism, knows the names of my family members, wants to know our stories and I just don’t know what to make of it.  I always considered our family history very private and only shared when friends specifically asked or if the conversation was about family history moments. I decide to just take it in all of this energy. I accept it. I begin the decision-making process of accepting the love. I’m glad I did.

The next day, we begin the drive to Radzanow.  This town, Pawel mentions, is not related to my family.  As we approach the very small town square, it really smells bad.  The is a meat processing plant nearby and it just smells awful. Pawel says we are meeting one of his clients he has sold insurance to who works for the town hall and he is going to unlock the synagogue for us to show it to us.  As we approach the synagogue, a family gets out of a car and comes towards us. The man, Pawel tells me, is his client, but there is a lady and a 14 year old boy. They all introduce themselves to us. I am very confused and I don’t understand why there are so many people here.

The husband unlocks the synagogue and the wife, I would learn, Agnieszka, begins to describe in Polish the important architectural details of the synagoge.  Her son, Cyprian, translates to English for me. I am almost brought to tears by the sadness of the story of the building. It is in disrepair. She asks me if I can read the Hebrew painted on the balcony.  Indeed I can. She continues to tell me the story of her effort to preserve the synagogue but her requests have been denied by the FODZ and she makes a nasty face when she says that. What’s the FODZ? She tells me it’s the Polish non-profit to preserve Jewish heritage.  I ask, if their purpose is to preserve Jewish heritage, why would they deny her request to restore the Radzonow synagogue? She tells me they told her she doesn’t have a purpose for it and no one comes to Radzonow. I can tell I’m getting Agnieszka riled up and she really dislikes the FODZ.

We wrap up the synagogue tour.  I hold in my tears. I, again, don’t have a reason to cry.  They ask me if I want to see an “outdoor museum”. I say yes, but I don’t really know what I’m saying yes to.  We drive a few minutes into the countryside and the air is now fresh again. We pull into a little farm village with a sign saying “Radzanowia”.  Agnieszka explains that this is her project. She and her family have created a reenactment village. She starts taking me around to the various buildings and points out the incredible detail.  I don’t fully understand what I’m looking at and I’m not sure if I’m just looking at a crazy person but I am appreciate of the attention and I am shocked that they built this entire thing themselves. I keep asking the son if what she is saying is true and he is saying yes.

Agneszka starts explaining how they make movies and the reenactment village is also a film studio.  She tells me to type in Radzanowia into Youtube. She shows me a Jewish wedding reenactment video that they made.  She’s watching me watch the video. She’s looking for my reactions. She asks me if it looks accurate. The wedding is a very orthodox wedding.  I explain that I’m not from a religious family but the traditional elements look accurate. She explains something about how this used to be normal here and now there are no Jews, no klezmer music, no Jewish celebrations.  They miss the celebrations. As much as she is missing, I am curious as to how she knows so much about Judaism, as a non-English speaker, to reenact a Polish Ashkenazi wedding. She tells me that she translated the Yizkor book.  That’s when I was floored.

Most people do not know what Yizkor books are.  They do not know they exist. Yizkor books are written mostly in Hebrew and Yiddish.  Few are in English. The Yizkor book for Jozefow isn’t even in English. I haven’t been able to read it fully, it’s too difficult.  Yet, Agneszkia was able to read enough of the Yizkor book of Radzanow that she was able to reenact a local wedding. In my mind, I’m wondering who are these people.  Where do they come from? Why are they like this? Why do they feel this way? They show me a few more properties and I ask them about their future plans and if they have a web site.  They have a Facebook page. They want to build a traditional manor house. They then invite me to their house for food. It’s maybe 10am.

We get to the house and we are greeted by Gabriella, Agneszka’s mother.  She speaks fluent English. She is smiling ear-to-ear. Food is on the table.  Beer and kielbasa and two servings of soup. Gabriella brings out old photos of Jewish families.  She’s reading the last names off the back of the photos and after each name she looks for my reaction, to see if these are my people: “Rosenberg?”, she looks hopefully, then disappointed.  “Schwartzman?”, she looks hopefully, then disappointed. This repeated a few times. I told her at the end I did not know these people and that the family members weren’t ringing a bell. She seemed disappointed.  She sat at the table and looked at me directly in the eyes. She said, “We miss the Jewish people. I love klezmer music.” She explains how Jews used to be everywhere and now they are not. I’m looking at Pawel too during this entire experience to see how he’s reacting.  He’s quite robotic and I cannot tell if he expected this or not. I would find out later that he decidedly did not expect any of this experience to happen. Agneszka and Gabriella explain that Polish-Jewish reconciliation and shared historical understanding is a passion of theirs and it’s just so clear.  The energy is radiating from them. They seem to want more information from me but do not know how to ask. They do not want me to leave. Pawel is indicating that we have more things to do that day and we have to go. They keep feeding more and more food. This time, it’s multiple slices of homemade cakes.

The entire meal, I’m sitting between Cyprian and Pawel.  I don’t know where to look. There’s just a lot of attention on me.  I try to make a few jokes in English and Cyprian understands. He soon realizes that I’m humorous and he’s slightly goofing around with me.  When his grandma and mom say things that are so overwhelmingly mythical, I look at Cyprian and I give him a “really?” Then I get a healthy chuckle.  It helped normalize the situation a bit. I’m being looked at like I’m a smiling, happy ghost. I need to show them that I’m just as real as they are.  In the same way that I’m surprised and happy to learn that such loving Polish people exist, they are looking at me and seeing that Jews still exist and they are willing to come to Poland, sometimes.

We take photos and hug goodbye.  Pawel and I drive back to his house.  I am completely exhausted. The vodka from the previous night did not help.  The morning in Radzanow was exhausting. I napped for three hours when we got back.  Later that afternoon, the family would be having a barbecue and Pawel’s sister Magda’s family would be coming over.  By the time I woke up from the nap, Hania had opened up to me. She was excited to see me and wanted to give me hugs and play.  Love was in the air.

Meeting Magda and her husband Remig was really fantastic.  Remig lived in Perth Amboy for a few years. He told me the story of his American experience as a male au pair for a single mom.  He knew zero English before coming to the States and learned super fast. He spoke fluently and it was very refreshing to be able to communicate fluently with someone.  Remig was a real bro. He made it clear that he doesn’t give a shit what your religion is or where you are from. We are all the same. We drank together and shot the shit.  We were able to talk about New Jersey. He works for a tiny home business, which is very interesting to me. He explained the modular nature of the construction and how all of the components are modified shipping pallets. 

Magda’s family left the next day.  Pawel and I had plans to see Glinojeck to visit his mother.  He warned me that there really is no town to speak of. We drove a while past the abandoned factory to his mother’s house out in the fields.  We were greeted in the driveway with a warm smile and a lot of nervous energy. I was super confused as to why she was nervous. In the backyard, two her friends were there.  They were friendly too, but no one spoke English. There’s some weird family situation with Pawel’s brother being a deadbeat so the family takes care of the brother’s children.  His ex-wife stopped by. She was in the middle of some all-nighter situation and there was a car accident on the road she was telling the others about. I kind of just sat there smiling, not really knowing what to do with myself.  Pawel told his mother about all of the countries I went to including the Phillipines, which I did not go to, but I figured for the sake of “conversation”, it’s best to let them all believe that I had indeed been to the Phillipines. 

We were served cold drinks and cake.  It was really hot outside. We were not there too long.  I suggested we take pictures. His mother was seated in a chair and pulled up a chair next to her for me to sit on.  She then brushed up the side of her cheek directly next to mine and was holding my arm. I’ve never been in a situation like this before.  I could feel the magnetism between our faces. She wanted to touch me and I wanted to let her. The picture itself looks quite normal but you will notice that are faces are completely touching.  She escorted me to Pawel’s car and held onto my arm and elbow the entire pathway. She did not want to let go, to say goodbye. I did not really understand this intention but I did feel the love.  When we got into the car, Pawel told me that her friends were there to witness this moment and to support her because this whole thing is just such a big deal to everyone. It’s flattering and overwhelming.

We made our way to the town where Grandpa was born, Prazynsz.  To me, it was remarkable at how unremarkable the town was. There was no energy on the street.  Lots of closed shops. A quiet park with a stream and a few benches. I started to envision how radically different life was for my family after the war.  Growing up in this little villages and then moving to giant, modern metropolises. They were accustomed to quiet village life and were uprooted and put into urban noisy hell.  While I knew that my ancestors were from small towns, I guess I assumed they were more interesting and more lively? I did not realize that my ancestry was really from villages in the truest sense of the word: dull, quiet, uneventful, provincial.  Basic village life. That’s my background.

There wasn’t much to see in Praznysz.  We went to the desecrated cemetery. The memorial is made of broken gravestones.  There is no semblance of a modern cemetery there. I did not really want to stay. We left for Ciechanow.  Ciechanow had recently reopened their main street after renovating it and pedestrianizing it. The plan unfortunately has backfired and many shops on the main street are now closed.  The town cannot generate the foot traffic required to sustain this model. We walked through the town center, down the new street all the way to a lovely fountain. There isn’t much to see.  We got ice cream and then went back to where we parked the car and went into an old fortress.

In the old fortress, I went to the bathroom and started reading the plaques about how the fortress has survived hundreds of years of different owners and renovations.  Then suddenly, a giant bomb went off. I freak and look and I see a guy dressed up as a knight moving away from a firing canon. I guess they do reenactments here too. A warning of the canon firing would have been nice.  The sound was horrific and booming and not necessary.

I left Mlawa the next morning to Gdansk.  I was eager to see the rest of Poland. I knew that starting it off with this energy was going to put me on the right track.  I’d be able to see difficult things with an open mind and remind myself that there are good, loving, supportive people like Pawel and his family in case there is a time where I feel alone, or worse, attacked.

Kasia gave me four jars of jams and picked mushrooms.  I would later learn in Berlin that this is a typical thing that German moms do (and apparently Polish moms) when their kids visit home from Berlin.  They give them jars to bring home. The native Berliners call these people “jars”. Pawel and Hania brought me to the Mlawa train station. We were having a frantic quick conversation about meeting again.  Throughout the weekend, Pawel had mentioned visiting the Masoura lake where Magda and Remig have a lake house (I think?). Or the house is in Olstzyn and we will merely drive to the lake? It’s all unclear.  I figured it would be something we would do next year. He told me they can meet again in three weeks. I knew I was planning on being in Berlin at that time and told him I might not be too far and we can try to make that work.  He was pretty insistent that the plan was set in stone. Pawel was not really saying goodbye. Pawel’s got me now and while I’m still in Europe, he isn’t letting go. Me, on the other hand, I am so quick to let go. I’m almost eager to let go.  I’m so used to this travel freedom that anything that ties me down to any specific place makes me feel constrained and stressed. Nowadays, at the first inkling of stress, I know something is wrong and I have to react to remove this stress. Still, saying goodbye to him while he was holding Hania was sad.  We asked a local girl to take our photo. They waited on the tracks until the train pulled away, in the same way a mom or a grandma would wave goodbye until you were completely out of sight. I knew then that this whole experience was not a one time deal. This is not a fluke or merely a Polish acquaintance to Whatsapp next time in Poland.  This is family. This is my family in Poland. It’s is most likely true that my family tree is alive due in part to Pawel’s great-grandmother. We will forever be connected.