Trip to Poland

Maps

Here is a brief synopsis of my trip to Poland. I was in Poland on a business trip to Mielec. I worked in Mielec from April 17-24, 1998. I then drove to Piotrkow-Trybulanski to meet my friend Jakub Blecki. We have been friends on the Internet for a long time and finally met. He has great parents who treated me like a king, and they live in a new condominium that was just three months old.
	Jakub (left) and I packing for Lomza.
We drove to Bialaszewo on Saturday, April 25. It was a five hour drive. We made a brief stop in Lomza and checked into the hotel. The roads aren't that bad but the driving habits of the Poles are similar to New York cabbies. The countryside was beautiful. Farms as far as you could see on a gentle rolling landscape. Occasionally we would pass a horse drawn cart. We also passed a few bad wrecks. We then proceeded another 35 kilometers to Przytuly. In Przytuly we stopped and asked four young girls who were sitting on a park bench if there were any Dziegielewski's living in the area. The youngest replied that that was her last name. We asked where she lived. She began to get upset. We explained that I was from America looking for my relatives. They apparently did not understand my fascination with my ancestors. The little girl began to cry. Jakub explained that we would return tomorrow and talk to the priest. We never got back, but plan to do so on the next visit.
The next town down the road was Klimaszewnica. Not much going on in this town. Except for the satellite dishes on the houses it looked like this town was back in the nineteenth century. We stopped. Took a photo and planned to return after visiting Bialaszewo.
When we got to Bialaszewo, we found the priest who was very helpful. His name was Marian Solinski. He is an elderly priest who chain smokes. At first it sounded like he wasn't going to cooperate. He asked why we didn't use a research agency like everyone else. Jakub said something to him. The priest then disappears, reappearing with an old book. It was crumbling and the pages were yellowed with age. It was all handwritten. The very first page had a Jozef Dziegielewski born in 1859 in Lipinskie. Lipinskie is the next town up the road . About two kilometers. His parents were Jozef Dziegielewski and Rozalia Godlewski. I looked through some Excel spreadsheets that the priest had. While I searched the spreadsheets, Jakub and Fr. Marian searched through the old book. Jakub found no other family names in the book. I found only Organek's in the spreadsheets. There were several dozen names dating from 1729 to 1799. The priest explained that the rest of the records were in Grajevo. I asked if I could get copies of the spreadsheets. He agreed but he nearest copier was in Grajewo. There were hundreds of names on the list that I needed to cross reference. Since it was Saturday, that search would have to wait until my return trip.
The church in Bialaszewo
Fr. Marian was really warming up to us by now. He asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. I said yes and thanked him. It was the most god awful cup of coffee I have ever had. It was the Polish coffee I had been warned about. I nursed this coffee for a real long time. By the time I reached the bottom of the cup there was at least a quarter inch of black sludge on the bottom of my cup. I was wired by the caffeine. No photo of Fr. Marian, He refused to pose for a picture.
My Great Grandmothers grave site
We then proceeded to one of the Dziegielewski families in town. Jakub, Fr. Marian and the couple engaged in a lively conversation. Not speaking Polish, I was fed bits and pieces of the conversation. It turns out that the did not think we were related. We talked to a second family and then a third. The third family was renting Henryk Aleksandrowicz's house. Henryk being my fathers first cousin. We all walked down to the cemetery to find the family plots. The cemetery was immaculate. It looked like all the headstones were brand new. We spotted a Dziegielewski and an Organek, no connection to us, maybe. Stavomir Dziegelewski (I may have spelled his name wrong) showed us the headstones in the cemetery of all the Aleksandrowicz family. He said that Henryk had moved to Prostki in 1993. He said that he had his phone number and we went back to his house to call him. It was already late in the afternoon and was going to get dark soon. We were warned not to drive in the country at night. We told Henryk that we would see him at 10:00 a.m. Sunday. We thanked Fr. Marian for all of his help. I gave him some money for the church, but he refused it. He told me that what he wanted was for me to get Poland admitted to NATO. He said that he never wanted the Russians ever to set foot in Poland again. I believe the anti-Russian sentiment in Poland outweighs the anti-German sentiment by a long shot. As you probably know, the following week after my trip, the U.S. Congress agreed to admit Poland into NATO. I wonder if Fr. Marian thinks I had anything to do with it.
Henryk's Father and Mother
We arrived Sunday and Henryk was in the backyard. I knew from his photograph that it was him. He was much older that his picture but the family resemblance was there. He looks a great deal like my father.
Henryk invited us in and introduced us to his granddaughter Gosia and her son Damian. We spent the next two hours showing Henryk photographs that I bought with me, including one of Henryk and a young man. He gave me a great deal of information about the family. His younger brother died in 1939 at the age of seven when the Luftwaffe strafed the town they were living in. Henryk's wife, two daughters and one son had moved to the United States. They were living in Brooklyn and Chicago. I couldn't believe it. I have since made contact with them and sent them copies of the family tree. We cut the visit short with the message that I would be returning in late May or early June. I am missing a lot of information because we ran out of time. I did not get to visit the other towns that we passed through on the way to Bialaszewo. In addition there are several other towns now to visit where our relatives once lived.