A Murder Case in Przechówko Village

The following is a translation from the Bydgoszcz Journal newspaper dated 25 September 1938.

  

Świecie

24. Sept. In yesterday's "Diary" we wrote briefly about the crime that took place on Thursday, the 22nd of this month. Before noon in the village of Przechowko near Świecie, 5 km away from the district town. Today we're sharing some more details gathered by our co-worker at the crime scene.

Just a few hundred meters from the bustling Bydgoszcz-Gdansk road, there is a small village called Przechowko. One of the farmsteads, located at the foot of the border of the Vistula lowland, belonged to the heirs of the deceased farmer Blankenfeld: 64-year-old Zelma Zieroth and over 50-year-old Zlotkowa. It is a 70-morg estate.

On the critical day, all the household members went to the field to pick potatoes. Zieroth stayed at home to prepare dinner. People returning for dinner noticed that the doors and windows were tightly closed and no one answered their calls. Touched by a bad feeling, they broke the window-pane and then, after removing an obstacle that had been placed to block access, they entered the interior, where they saw a terrible mess. All the things were thrown out of the wardrobes and chests of drawers onto the floor, the drawers were wide open, and there was no trace of Zieroth. All rooms and corners were ransacked. Finally, one of the household members went into the basement where the potatoes were being transported that day and, to his great horror, he saw Zieroth's body, dead and hanging. In addition, the household members noticed that money in the amount of PLN 70 and two watches had been stolen. An unknown perpetrator, or maybe there were more of them, broke into the house, first killed Zieroth, dragged the body to the basement, hung it, and only after this terrible action did he start robbing, certainly expecting a large amount of cash.

The police, informed about the crime, immediately started a pursuit and investigation under the leadership of the district commander, Dzwoniarka from Świecie.

"The house where the terrible crime was committed":

Mennonites leave Molotschna Colony, Summer 1874

Many Mennonite Przechówko descendants lived in the villages of Franzthal and Alexanderwohl in the Molotschna Colony.  In 1874, these were the leading advocates of emigration to North America.  By extension, for example, Molotschna Colonists at the Pordenau Church were heavily influenced.  This included the southeast Molotschna villages such as Elisabethtal, Alexanderthal, Marienthal.  Further, Franzthal villagers (Franzthal was originally meant to be named Przechówko but Russian authorities apparently nixed the idea) were mostly Przechówko descendants and had to a large degree taken over the Rudnerweide Church, so there were others from Grossweide and Pastwa that were influenced to migrate.  A lot of folks from all these villages had roots at Tragheimerweide so at Alexanderwohl in Kansas, there were therefore a good number of people with Tragherimerweide ancestry.

Therefore, there are a lot of people today that count themselves part of the Alexanderwohl community who have no ancestry from Przechówko at all.  Franzes, Hieberts, Thiessens, Klaassens, Edigers, Harders, Wienses - certainly none of these surnames originated at Przechówko.  Further, Schroeder and Nickel family members joined Alexanderwohl very early on but probably came from Podwitz and were Frisians from Schonsee instead of Przechowko or die Kleine Schule.  Dalkes also came from Right Bank Vistula but were Lutherans before emigration to Russia.

The Alexanderwohl group - those who travelled to USA aboard the SS Teutonia and SS Cimbria in July/August 1874, took the following route when leaving Europe:

Przechówko Village Layout III; 1854/57 Przechówko School Document

From the Geheimes Staatarchiv in Berlin, I_HA_Rep_76_IX_Sekt_5_Lit_P_Nr_41_0001-0057

In 1854 the Przechówko villagers are collecting fees for the construction of a new school building.  In either 1823 or 1833 (in one place the doc says 1823, in another place, 1833) the Lutheran residents constructed the first school building in the village and in 1852 that structure burned down.  Documents related to the rebuilding of the school tell us only very little about the village during the mid-19th century.  Przechówko in 1854 was divided into 16 farms and there were also 5 Einwohner families present.  The Schulze was Jacob Wolter.  Like the Mennonites before them, the Lutheran families were generally of very modest means.  The soil in the village fields was very sandy and the whole was still prone to spring flooding from the Vistula or the Wda Rivers.

From Bydgoszcz Archives, we also know that Przechowko children were attending Deutsch Konopat school in the year 1820.  Stobbe indicates Przechowko built its own school "in 1832, when the town of Przechowko built its own school and wanted to rebuild the Mennonite meetinghouse for that purpose, the few remaining Mennonites opposed the move and sold it to be dismantled. What happened to the meetinghouse cannot be ascertained, since the records of the town were destroyed by a fire in 1857." [see: https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Przechovka_(Kuyavian-Pomeranian_Voivodeship,_Poland)]    Is this the 1852 fire mentioned above?

From the 1773 census, we know that during the Mennonite era, the village was 300 Culm Morgen altogether but we don't know what the breakdown for meadow vs cultivated vs uncultivated land was.

This 1854/57 school document goes on to tell us how the village land was broken down: “The school community includes 16 residents.... Together they own 150 Culm Morgen of meadows in the lowlands, which are very tolerable; also 98 Culm Morgen cultivated land, some of which is very productive; and 54 ½ Culm Morgen of uncultivated land. ".  That's a total of 302½ Culm Morgen, only 2½ Morgen different to the Mennonite total (perhaps just a difference in surveying precision).

[Note: we also know that the Przechowo Vorwerk was equivalent to 249 acres]

Adalbert Goertz tells us that 1 Culm Morgen was roughly equivalent to 1.383 modern acres (https://mennonitegenealogy.com/faq/faqpruss.htm).  Given that information, it's simple to calculate land areas in modern units:

And it's also pretty easy to look at a Przechówko village map and see the breakdown using logical lines on the old maps.  Brent Wiebe provides this map using units in acres:

We can very easily estimate these measurements onto a modern satellite view and see approximately where the old cultivated field, uncultivated, and meadowland areas were.