Poland Day 6 - Krakow First Impressions

A leisurely start in Kielce today. Breakfast, car rental return and hotel checkout all done by 10:00am, then off to the train station to catch the 11:06 train to Krakow.

We arrived at the city centre station by 12:40 and with nothing on our tour scheduled until 4:30, we decide to walk the 1.5 klm to our hotel, the Radisson Blu. The walk takes us through the "old town" and so far I'm impressed. This city with a population of about 800,000 is buzzing with life in the city centre and seems clean and welcoming.

Arriving at the hotel, we find it's far nicer than the Best Western in Kielce and sits right across the street from a park and walkway system that surrounds the old town.

Apparently if you walk the full length of the path (corner forefront in the photo below), you will find yourself back at your starting point in about 45 minutes. I am impressed with the cleanliness of the city and am surprised by how green everything is already. 

After check in, we set off to explore a little and find some lunch before meeting with our tour director at 4:30. There seems to be a lot to see and do here.

It doesn't take long at all to find a nice patio where we enjoy a piwo along side a few pierogi ruskie and some really tasty bigos.

After meeting with the tour director, he guides us on a short tour of the old town and focuses on the University of Krakow (or Jagiellonian University), which was established in 1364 and is one of the oldest universities in the world. It's an impressive property and boasts some well known alumni, like Copernicus and Karol Wojtila (aka Pope John Paul II), among many others. Apparently Marie Curie was originally denied a research position at the university because she was a woman, but in 1924 received and honorary doctorate from the institution.

The hall of the university in the shot below, is significant for an infamous meeting which took place after the German invasion in 1939. 

Krakow being virtually defenceless at the time, had been taken over without major battle or resistance.  Now being under German control, Gestapo chief Bruno Muller invited 184 of the areas brightest minds to a "meeting" at this hall. They willingly arrived for the meeting thinking they would be asked to be valued contributors to the new governing regime. Instead they, along with the president (the city leader we know as "mayor") of Krakow, were all arrested and ultimately sent to the Dachau concentration camp where most of them perished. This was apparently the beginning of the "purging" of Krakow.

The following shot is of the tower of Saint Mary's Church. Legend has it that in 1241, the city was saved from a Mongol invasion by a sentry stationed atop the tower. He played an anthem called the Hejnal to warn the population of the advancing armies. He apparently became the only casualty of the attack, having been struck in the throat by an arrow, before he could complete the anthem. 

Now, every hour of every day the sentry's performance is re-enacted, but the anthem stops abruptly mid stanza, representing the sentry's demise.

     All in all, today was an interesting day and I am looking forward to seeing more of the area. Tomorrow we'll visit the Wieliczka Salt Mine and Oscar Schindler's factory, in addition to exploring more of this beautiful city.

Poland Day 5 - Success

Today is our last day here in Kielce and therefore the last day of our quest for Kopys family genealogy, at least directly here in Poland. After breakfast tomorrow, we return that nice (and possibly under-utilized 😉), rental car and hop on a train for the trip back to Krakow where we'll start our formal organized tour.

I'm looking forward to that part of the trip, but I know it will pale in comparison to the fun, excitement, emotion and satisfaction these last few days have provided.

But back to today though!  Today was a day of successes.

After our continued search over the last 5 days, Mary was finally able to locate a restaurant that was both open and offering a selection of the more traditional Polish cuisine. We've had soups and salads and pastas and steaks and pizzas. Don't get me wrong. It was all very good but until this afternoon, we had not been able to find dishes like pierogi, golabki, bigos or kapusta. Finally today we enjoyed a meal of kapusta along with potato and cheese, and mushroom stuffed pierogi. Some of the very best we've ever eaten.

The food find actually came after this morning's greater successes in our ongoing quest for Kopys family history. 

Brother Steve and I headed off to our planned meeting at the local land registry office in the town of Pawlow, not too far from Nieczulice. Mary stayed in Kielce to try her luck at finding maps and land survey information at the regional archive centre there. You know, the ole' "divide and conquer" routine. 

 The hope was that Mary would be able to find maps and land surveys from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, while Steve and I worked to narrow our title search using the knowledge of the local expert and more recent documentation in the Pawlow land offices.

Mary after some time, was able to meet with someone at the archive centre. Despite her best efforts, she was told they could not provide the type of information we wanted for genealogical purposes, even if we were willing to pay for the administrative fees and paperwork. 

Mary's success however was in locating the establishment that provided our delicious mid afternoon, Polish style meal. (re: photo above)

In the mean time, Steve and I had much better success. Although we were not able to nail down the exact location of the house dad grew up in and the older more seasoned "local expert" we were to meet turned out to be a dud, thanks to the efforts of  young Matthew, we were able to clarify some of the family history including the names of our great grandparents. 

 This young (20 something), man went the extra mile for us and along with surprising us with his hand drawn updates to the family tree, he also provided a wealth of information we can use to follow the trail and flesh out more details from home. It dawned on us after, that Matthew's efforts went far beyond his official domain, but he seemed to be genuinely interested in, and having fun at helping our cause. 

Thanks Matthew!

Our next bit of good fortune came when we returned for one last visit to Nieczulice. You know... take a couple more pictures, conger mental images of dad and his sister running to hide in the forest during a WWI artillery barrage and generally trying to imagine what the village looked like 100 years ago.

Will have to use google translate in trying to understand what this monument represents, but its proximity to dad's age made it interesting to me. I wonder what was happening in 1905 to warrant the monument.

With not yet having found empirical evidence, we can't say for sure the house in the photo below was dads childhood home. But with what we've learned since being here, my senses say it's a good bet.

 But now here is the good fortune I was getting to before I wandered off again into my century old mental photographs.

We just couldn't leave the area without saying goodbye to our new found family. So we dropped by with a parting gift. But almost before we could say a word, we were excitedly escorted into the house. Monika, who we now know is a distant cousin, wants to show us some pictures and one in particular has her interest. It had a note on the back dated 1962 and was sent to her grandmother I think. In Polish the note said something like "I've arrived safely in Canada and am visiting with uncle and his family".

The shot below is Steve with Monika holding the picture she wanted us to see.

I near fell off my chair when I saw the picture. I said something like, "oh, that's Cecilia", then I paused for a second before realizing and exclaiming loudly, "and me". The uncle and family referred to in the note was us. The picture includes my dad flanked by Cecilia on the left, mom on the right and me at age 9. Cecilia is a cousin who now lives in Freemont Ohio.

So we obviously have more family linkages to track down, as I'd now like to better understand the relationships between Cecilia, Monika and ourselves. But what a wonderful way to end this portion of our Poland adventure.

Poland Day 4 - A National Holiday

Given it was a national holiday here in Poland with most offices and businesses closed, we decided today would be dedicated to being nothing more than tourists. Our quest for Kopys family history will resume again tomorrow.

Today in Poland it's Constitution Day, celebrating the declaration of its constitution on May 3, 1791. It's the second oldest constitution in the world, next to that of the USA. The constitution was "delisted" during the era of Soviet Communist domination, but re-established after the fall of communism in 1989.

So as we set off on our site seeing walk (only about 16,000 steps today), we planned on a quick visit to the cathedral near the national museum,  then a stroll through a local park along the way to an area boasting natural caves within an urban setting.

 But as we strolled toward the museum we soon discover the gathering of participants in the Constitution Day parade and decide to wait for the parade to begin.

It appeared that parade participants were dressed in period costumes representing numerous eras of Polish history.

Current military forces also joined the celebrations.

Once the parade is done we stroll around the National Museum and its beautiful walkways and gardens.

We continue our walk to the caves through this park which appears to be dedicated to "the arts". 

Bust of the likes of Pablo Picaso, George Gershwin, Marilyn Monroe and many others line the walkways. Poets, musicians, authors and artists from many eras are represented but the next two in particular stand out for me. 

We finally arrive at the park which boasts the caves and as we walk the pathway we see these two stones etched with Roman numerals from 1 to 10. We wonder what they are for but then realize, with Poland being the very, very Christian country it is, these two "tablets" likely represent the ten commandments. Why they are placed here, nowhere near a religious edifice is beyond me.  

A little further along, we find the caves. Everything is locked up and nobody near to take our money or allow entry. Of course...  It's a national holiday. Why would you even think to open a tourist attraction on a day when the majority of the population has the day off? What were we thinking?

As we wander this "cave attraction" a little further, we see a couple of young men making use of the craggy rock face for their own thrills and entertainment. I couldn't watch.

Our day ended with a leisurely stroll back to the hotel. We stopped to buy a couple of parting gifts for our new found family members but then retired to the bar lounge to sooth our aching muscles with some liquid pain killer. 

Tomorrow we return to the land registry office in Pawlow to continue our quest for family history. Then we'll pay another visit to Nieczulice for a few more photos and to say goodbye to those new found relatives, before returning to Krakow to join the formal Insight Vacations tour on Friday.

Even if we are unable to further our understanding of the Kopys family history, I think we would still consider this leg of our journey, a huge success. But for now to quote a famous Canadian musician, "let's just see what the morrow brings".

Poland, Day 3 - Lots of steps but little progress.                                                                                          

The photo below shows our rental car. It's a Skoda Octavia and not a bad little car once you get used to it's stop/start engine technology. It did startle me when we stopped at the first stop light. I was sure the engine had stalled. Of course when I took my foot off the brake the engine fired up again and off we went. So all in all, it's a perfectly good little car. The rental agency (Avis), even arranged for an automatic transmission, assuming with us being from Canada, we wouldn't know how to drive standard.

Somehow, despite having and using a perfectly serviceable automobile today, we still managed to log 20,000 steps according to Mary's Fitbit.

This morning was dedicated to a search for birth and land registry records, to aid in filling the missing family tree links and to identify exactly which house was the original household of Benedict and Katarzina Kopys, our paternal grandparents. After a 30 minute drive from our hotel in Kielce, we arrived at the church below which we had been assured kept birth records for the Nieczulice parish. 

Once we finally found the rectory and met the pastor, we were disappointed to hear this lead was a dead end and that he suggested those records would be kept at the church in Chybice where we assumed dad had been baptized (pictured in yesterday's blog entry). We had already visited that church, with no success. 

Our next stop is the land registry office in the town of Pawlow. It took a little work to find the specific office but once we did, two younger gents seemed eager to help us out and exercise their high school English at the same time. We spent at least 90 minutes there searching records that just didn't seem to go back quite far enough. We did however identify a couple more addresses owned by Kopys's, but still have not identified the original Kopys house.

We left the office with a meeting scheduled for Thursday (tomorrow is a holiday), to meet with an "older colleague" who is more familiar with the area and some of the older paper records. The one young fellow (Matthew), even promised to speak to his grandfather who knew people in Nieczulice.

We were also given the address of a historical archive office back in Kielce, which we decide to visit.
On the way back, we stop to take the photo below, in an attempt to show the scale and confused layout of the cemetery we searched yesterday. It's at least 3 times the size of what's seen in this photo.

Now back in Kielce, we decide we need sustenance and walk to the near by (and now becoming a favourite), Azzurro  restaurant pictured below. Same spot as our first meal in Poland.

 After another delicious pizza and Lech beer, we're off to the historical archive office we'd been told about. 

"It's a little distance but shouldn't be too much more than our walk on Sunday", says Mary. "Let's walk". 

Steve and I reluctantly agree to leave that perfectly serviceable rental vehicle behind and set off on foot. Yup, you guessed it. This is where the majority of those 20k steps, as measured by Mary's fitbit, take place. Oh, and here is also where Mary's considerable navigation skills, fail us. 

We are searching for a specific address and after about 9000 steps, Mary assures us it's not much 

further. 

We are now walking a roadway that cuts through a forest, with trees as far as the eye can see.  It's a pretty forest but when have you last seen a tree with and address. Besides, I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be a bricks and mortar building, unless of course they are still using birch bark for archival media. So I resort to Google and sure enough, we had missed a turn. After another 3000 or so steps, we finally arrive at our destination. 

Looks pretty deserted. No cars in the parking lot. Gates are locked. Closed! 

Another 15,000 steps (ya, I know the math doesn't work, but it sure felt that way), get us back to the hotel where the Skoda sits idle. 

Tomorrow is a national holiday. Most. businesses and offices will be closed. So we've designated tomorrow as a purely "tourist" day. We'll explore the local tourist sites.

Sounds like more walking to me.

Poland Day 2 - Nieczulice. An amazing day!                                                                                          
                                                                                         
So it's Monday, May 1st and today we head out to explore the village of Nieczulice. This is where our dad, Jozef Kopys, was born and lived until he apparently fled and arranged marriage in 1928. He was 24 years old when he packed up, boarded a ship for Canada, registered at Halifax's Pier 21 and finally landed as an Canadian immigrant in Montreal. He knew nobody, had $25 in his pocket and worked his way across the country with CP Rail, who had sponsored his immigration.

The drive was a pleasant one and we didn't get lost once. Not sure who the better navigator was. We used Googles gps functionality on my smart phone, but sister in law Mary with her paper map, was usually ahead of the Google voice prompts.

A beautiful restaurant and inn we passed along the way to Nieczulice

  As we drove into the village, we anticipated just exploring a little, get our bearings and then moving on to find the local church and community centre. We had been told at the Kielce tourism centre, the church and community offices would be our best bets for the kind of information we were looking for. We had also been given the name of a local historian who spoke English and might be able to help us out. So the plan was to find the significant land marks, return to Kielce, then contact the historian for advice on how to proceed.

We weren't really prepared for what ensued.

The next few shots depict some of the village homes as they stand today, some 89 years after dad left. We apparently caused quite a stir as we parked the car and began wandering about taking pictures of houses in the area. We saw many a curtain flutter open and then quickly closed again as we wandered by. Eventually we saw neighbours gathering, leaning on fences and chatting while looking our way. We can only imagine the conversations.... "who are these strangers and what to they want with us?"

The church on the far left in the photo below, was likely the very church dad would have been baptized in and then attended regularly.  

We're told that after marriage, old traditions had a father giving his son a parcel of land to farm. We're also told a very large portion of the community belonged to the Kopys family (Polish spelling), and without land registry records, we couldn't be too sure which of the houses along the roadway would be the original homestead. The next two shots show what seemed to be the oldest of the homes on the road (which we know is the right road), so we have an inkling this might be where dad grew up.

   As we continue wandering the roadway, we notice a younger man working a small section of field. We approach thinking, with him being young, there is a chance he speaks a little English. Sure enough he knows enough to understand what we are looking for and says there are still a number of Kopys's in the area, but tells us his wife grew up here and also spoke better English. 

   He (Piotr/Peter), rushed off and returned a couple minutes later with his wife, Monika. Sure enough she knows a number of the family and tells us if he's home, she can introduce us to Mirik, whom we think may be dad's great, great nephew. Next thing you know we are sitting at a dining table in Mirik's house (short for Miroslav I think), for probably two hours trying to make family tree connections, with Monica as the translator. What a great experience. My heart was pounding with excitement, especially when he says he remembers visitors from Canada visiting his parents in that very same house, when he was about 11 years old. The timeline works with when mom and dad came to visit Poland for the first and only time since dad's immigration. 

The icing on the cake for me was when we discovered Monika is related as well. We are still trying to tie together all the family links but if I recall properly, her great grandmother was a Kopys. 

 So in the photo below are brother Steve Kopysh, Monika Ulinska, Mirek Kopys and of course myself .

Our last stop for the day was at the local cemetery to see if we can find family grave sites and in particular dad's parents graves. It was a large and crowded facility making exploration difficult. However we found numerous Kopys markers and we still need to make all the linkages but the couple below we think are significant.

We're pretty sure this is the marker for dad's brother Jan who according to the stone,  died at age 68 in 1960 and also for his son (Dad's nephew and Mirik's father) Jan, who died in 88 at age 70.

And lastly we believe these markers are for dad's parents, his mother Katarzyna and father Benedict.

There is much more research to be done over the next couple of days but after today, and even if we make no further family history discoveries, the trip is already well worth it. We also hope to see Mirik and Monika again before we leave to join our organized coach tour on Friday.

Poland Day 1 - Kielce

April 29 & 30...

This trip marks my first experience visiting my fathers' homeland. Day one was pretty much a travel day, having left home for YYZ at noon Saturday and arriving in Frankfurt Germany at 6:10 am local time Sunday. From there a flight to Krakow had us finally arriving in Poland around 10:00 am. A 20 minute train ride from the airport to downtown Krakow then another 1.5 hour train ride from there, had us finally arriving at our hotel in Kielce around 1:00 pm Sunday (7:00 am EST).

So needless to say, we were somewhat weary travellers when we ventured out to explore the area. Giving in to our urge for a nap would have been the worst thing to do so we set out with two goals. Cold beer and a taste of the local cuisine.

Being Sunday, the local shopping district seemed desolate. 

When we finally found a local restaurant, we were quick to order "piwo" (beer). But who would have thought our first taste of local cuisine would be pizza. It was very good though.

After our refreshment and delicious pizza we continued our stroll down Henryka Sienkiewicza street only to find an outdoor market where the smell of fresh baked breads and some of the more traditional polish cuisine was intoxicating. Too bad we had just indulged in Pizza and Beer.

This market stand offered a selection traditional Polish fare including grilled kielbasa, begos and grilled pork, bacon and apple skewers. Smelled delicious!

As we continued down the road we came across a community square and were entertained by music with the locals joining in to dance. The group of musicians reminded me a lot of FishGuts.

From what we've seen so far, Kielce seems to be a nice city with a quaint weekend market, scenic walkways and parks and of course buskers. 

This gentleman was playing a Roland, electric accordion. Sounded great as he played a selection of what I thought were North American hits, like "Summertime".

But Kielce is only a convenient starting point from which to embark on our next adventure and the real reason for this trip. It's a trip of historical family discovery for brother Steve and I as we pick up our rental car and venture off to the near by village of Nieczulice, the farming community where our dad grew up.