21 Friday and I was up around 3am. This would finally be my day. Lena was on time and we hit the road in our
rented Kia Picanto shortly after 4am. We
took the S7 to Nowy Dwór Gdański again and I drove north to Żelichowo (Petershagen). From here we doubled back and went to
Starocin (Reinland) followed by Powalina (Walldorf), and Orliniec (Neulanghorst). These are all villages between Nowy Dwór
Gdański and Elbląg where Lena’s ancestors had lived. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. Fog hung in the low areas, poppies grew in
the ditches and storks sat in their nests.
It was wonderful touring these roads so early since we were almost the only
ones up.
From Orliniec we went to Suchowo (Rosenort) and Jazowa
(Einlage) where we both had ancestors.
At one point we got on a very narrow road that was more of a path really
– just two wheel-tracks with tall weeds growing in the middle. It was actually quite an adventure to be out
in the Middle-of-Nowhere, Poland, driving almost impassable roads. I’m sure the bottom of the car was very clean
with the 2-foot growth of weeds in the middle of the road cleaning away any oil
or grime. Time went very quickly,
though, driving slowly through this country and in no time, we needed to head
for Rosenkranz, which was very important to me.
I really wanted to find the half-circle shaped clearing that
surrounds Rosenkranz on maps – a strange half-moon shaped area immediately to
the east of the point where the Nogat River leaves the Vistula. It was almost an hour’s drive south basically
from Nowy Dwór Gdański along the S5 to Malbork and then on to Sztum. From Sztum, we set a course for Biała Góra
which would have been the German village of Weissenberg. Just before crossing the river here, we
turned north, skirting the east side of the river, before bending slightly to
the east. There was a farm here and then
the road, more of a path really, entered the forest. We drove just a little and then decided to
get out and walk.
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| Forest near Rosenkranz (immediately north of Biała Góra) |
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| The clearing beyond the trees is Rosenkranz |
As we walked into the tall pines, I could see that, to the
left (north, northwest) I could see through the trees to a clearing
beyond. This was the clearing of
Rosenkranz! We were actually on top of
the upland – this was the forest – and Rosenkranz actually lay on the
floodplain floor down below. The bluff
was a fairly steep drop-off, maybe 20 feet or so, and I didn’t want to
descend. But I could definitely see that
I was looking out over the area where Rosenkranz was. On maps, the clearing around Rosenkranz
appears as an odd half-circle surrounded by the river on the west and forest
the rest of the way around. Now I could
see that the forest represented the upland and the half circle was the floor of
the floodplain. This was just the shape
nature had produced here and the Mennonites would have drained the area of
plain and filled it with fields.
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| Rosenkranz, with cemetery circled, 1913 |
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| Cemetery at Rosenkranz |
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| Cemetery at Rosenkranz |
We walked a bit farther into the thick forest and I spotted
an old cemetery on the opposite side of the road. Could this cemetery be related to
Rosenkranzers and my Penner ancestors? Could
my 5th Great Grandfather, Jacob Penner, be buried here? There were a number of broken-down stones and
we saw that one definitely had an inscription.
We worked to clear the moss and mud so we could read the name but the
mosquitoes were literally so thick that we were soon driven away. We never were able to read the name and I
still don’t know if this could have been a Mennonite cemetery at any
point. However, I can now see that on a
1909 map, there is a cemetery marked here and it does look as though it might
be connected with Rosenkranz. I’ve since
contacted a man at the museum in Nowy Dwór Gdański who spends his free time
bicycling to Mennonite cemeteries where he painstakingly photographs all the
stones. He feels this might indeed be a
nearly unknown Rosenkranz cemetery which has eluded his “to do” lists. He says he’ll put it on his itinerary for
next year and hope to explore it thoroughly.
So, it seems that we may have uncovered a “new” Mennonite cemetery, this
associated with Rosenkranz. Hopefully,
time will tell.
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| On top of the dike near Rudniki (Rudnerweide) |
From Biała Góra we went south on the 605 where we almost
immediately encountered the dike running on the east side of the Vistula. This was an excellent look at a dike and soon
we were upon Rudniki (Rudnerweide) where my Penner ancestors may have also
lived. From there we passed south to
Gurcz (Gutsch), home to my Lohrentz and Unrau ancestors. By now we were really running out of time and
needed to head for Świecie so we bypassed Pastwa (Grossweide) and Grutzmuhle
(where my 4th Great Grandfather, Peter Lohrentz, lived) on the Liwa
River northeast of Kwidzyn. We skirted Kwidzyn
(Marienwerder) to the north and headed across the river on Route 90, eventually
turning south onto the A1, and then west at Nowe Marzy on the 5. We were to meet Michał at the Orlen station at Wiąg. Wiąg itself had also been home to Mennonite
villagers of the Przechowka community when the village was named Jungen. Nowy Marzy was actually Neu Marsau – Alt
Marsau is just to the east and records indicate that’s where Lohrentzes may
have lived as early as the first quarter of the 17th Century.
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| Rudniki (Rudnerweide) |
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| Road near Gurcz (Gutsch) |
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| Gurcz (Gutsch) |
We left our rental at the Orlen station and piled into
Michal’s Skoda wagon. First, we took a
little detour to Sartowice where there’s a high spot to look over the Vistula
valley (Kościół Rzymskokatolicki pw. św. Barbary; Sartowice 29, 89-100
Sartowice, Poland). This is a good
vantage point over the valley and the Teutonic Knights actually had a castle
here some 500 years ago. The collapsing
sands in the valley below made strange noises and as a result, the place was
said to be haunted.
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| In the distance is the Vistula, with Dorposz Chełmiński (Dorposch) on its far bank |
Directly across the river at this point, almost exactly 1
mile to the south and clearly visible, was the village of Dorposz Chełmiński (Dorposch). This village was home to members of the
Przechowka Gemeinde including Jacob Thoms, my 9th Great
Grandfather. From here one could clearly
see the low floodplain, where Dorposch was, and the bluff farther away which
rose up to the high ground. Presumably,
the floodplain, as well as the village of Dorposch, would have been regularly
susceptible to flooding before the Mennonites developed ditches, dikes, and
pumps, to manage the water.
From here, we headed towards Jeziorki (known to the
Mennonites as Jeziorken, Jeziorka, or Kleinsee), the last home of my Ratzlaff
and Buller ancestors in Poland. We took
the S5 around the north side of Świecie (Schwetz), exiting north at Przechowo (Schönau)
and headed northwest on the 240. Michał
pointed out the Wda River and the fact that construction on the highway has
been ongoing, but stalled out, for the past couple years now due to lack of
funding. Foxes darted in and out of the wheat
fields and the storks sat in their nests.
We passed through Przysiersk (Heinrichsdorf), turned north to go through
Bramka, west just before entrance into Siemkowo, and entered Jeziorki from the
east. There really isn’t much to see
here in this tiny village so we headed toward the cemetery.
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| Jeziorki (Jeziorken) 1900 |
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| Jeziorki cemetery is in the trees ahead |
We parked at a little grocery store/alcohol shop, and walked
northeast along the little lane between the fields, passing almost through one
farmer’s yard. After just a short walk
we hopped an electric wire and walked through the wheat field to the
cemetery.
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| Jeziorki cemetery |
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| Jeziorki cemetery |
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| Jeziorki cemetery |
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| Jeziorki cemetery |
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| Jeziorki cemetery |
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| Jeziorki cemetery |
I was surprised by the sandy soil – it was almost pure
sand.
But the cemetery was definitely
recognizable as such.
The floor of the
cemetery was covered with young lilac sprouts and
Michał said the farmers will not raze
such a place.
They will not necessarily
move in to maintain a cemetery but they will respect it and not farm over the
top of it.
There were only a few stones remaining
which may have been grave markers but this is a notable place for Polish
Prussian Mennonite history.
Among
others, two of my 6
th Great Grandfathers, Jeorgen Ratzlaff and Hans
Buller, as well as 6
th Great Grandmothers Catherine Schmidt and Anna
Wedel, would almost certainly be buried here.
We explored and looked, I quietly reflected for just a moment, and then
we were back on our way walking the lane toward our car.
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| View from Jeziorki cemetery |
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| View from Jeziorki cemetery |
As we walked, the farmer appeared and I feared trouble. He was a big guy and his elaborately curving
moustaches seemed to enhance his severely furrowed eyebrows. He had his fists on his hips in a defensive
posture and was trying to make himself look as big as possible. I thought, here I am in the middle of Poland
and I’m going to get skewered by a farmer for trespassing! As we approached, Michał hailed him and I
could tell from the tone of his voice that he was not happy with us! Michał replied in a jovial manner but the
farmer’s responses were always gruff and curt.
The exchange, of course, was in Polish – the farmer’s angry questions
and demands; Michał’s good-natured responses and excuses, and then Michał’s
repeated reassurances to me that all was well.
In the end, we just kept walking, returned to our car and drove away.
Now we headed for Przechowka and
Michał
said this would be a real treat.
He indicated
that the Przechowka cemetery is one of the biggest Mennonite cemeteries in all of Poland – wholly
unrestored and relatively unknown.
Indeed, most of the folks I’ve talked to in USA and Canada claim the
cemetery doesn’t exist.
For whatever reason, some previous explorers from North America have reported that the cemetery doesn't exist any longer and a myth was started that it was wiped out by the Mondi factory. 20 years-worth of North American Mennonites beginning in
the 1990s believe there is no such thing as a surviving cemetery at
Przechowka.
Alan Peters may have taken
some folks to the proper place in the subsequent years after Klassen’s
retirement from leading tours in Poland but we can’t be sure Peters had the
correct location.
These folks’
descriptions of the graveyard don’t seem to match my observances on this day (in
fact, they’re not even close).
I can tell you right here and now that the Przechowka
cemetery does in fact exist and it’s a wonderful, profoundly moving spot.
It’s unrestored and better off for the lack
of upkeep.
How do I know we found
it (aside from the fact that Michał, our supremely knowledgeable guide said so)?
In the Przechowka article in GAMEO,
the historian Leonard Stobbe reports that in 1918 the current school was
standing on the grounds of the former Mennonite meetinghouse.
The cemetery, presumably, would be adjacent
to this meetinghouse.
Well, we do have a map from 1909 that labels
a school, as well as a spot next-door marked with crosses – a cemetery.
This would indeed be the cemetery of the
Mennonite community.
We can easily match
the location of the cemetery on the old 1909 map to a spot on a new satellite
image of the area.
Thus, we can indeed
calculate the location of the 1909 cemetery and this is exactly the spot Michał was heading for.
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| Wintersdorf (Przechowka) 1909, cemetery circled in red |
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| Przechowka satellite view, 2019, approximate location of cemetery circled in red |
Just a bit of history, Przechowka was the only Groningen Old
Flemish
gemeinde in Polish Prussia.
The
gemeinde was probably established a couple miles west of Świecie,
on the north side of the Vistula, in the very early 17
th Century, we
don’t know a year for sure.
We do know
for a fact that by the 1660s there was a thriving Mennonite population in the
village.
The inhabitants may have been
influenced by the Swiss/Moravian presence in the Vistula valley and also gained
congregants from the local Polish/Pomeranian population.
The
gemeinde maintained a close
relationship with its brethren in Groningen, in the Lowlands, and spawned
several daughter settlements itself.
These settlements included Jeziorki, the Neumark villages in
Brandenburg, and Deutsch Wymysle in Masovia.
These villages also spawned their own daughter settlements in Russian Ukraine
during the 19
th Century including the villages in Volhynia and
Gnadenfeld and Waldheim in the Molotschna Colony.
The majority of the Mennonites in Przechowka left
for Russia in the 1820s and the congregation in West Prussia was extinct by
1830.
Any remaining Mennonites joined
nearby Frisian congregations at Schonsee or Montau.
Most of those who moved to Russia formed the
Alexanderwohl
Gemeinde in the Molotschna Colony.
Today, we’re still blessed to have many
records from this
gemeinde including the original church records and
diaries written by VIPs visiting from the Lowlands.
So, driving southeast from Jeziorki on the 240, we passed
again through Przysiersk and made pleasant conversation. At Przechowo, Michał pointed out that it was
here where old granaries were built to store the grain harvested in the
area. Indeed, ruins of several old
granaries stand here today near the junction of 240/91 and the S5. We headed southwest at Bydgoska Road with the
Mondi factory on our right, pretty quickly turning left between a couple
structures belonging to the factory.
After 500-600 yards, this gave us access to the almost due east-west road
that, on old maps, looks to be the main road running through the village of
Przechowka. We turned west and in
another 300-400 yards we had the cemetery on our left.
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| Przechowka cemetery is on the south side of the old village road |
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| The village road is at bottom left. Presumably, the meetinghouse would have been in this direction |
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| Village road passing the cemetery and continuing west |
The Przechowka village road is nowadays just a couple tracks
through the forest. As soon as you turn
west, you forget that you’re so close to such a big, polluting factory and
you’re suddenly in the middle of nowhere going down a narrow dirt path. The cemetery comes up on your left and it’s
lined with large old trees. Gravestones
peaked out from here and there but you had to look to see them through the small
lilacs which lined the floor of the place.
It’s roughly triangular shaped, broader at the west and coming to a
point at the east. The north is bounded
by the road and the whole thing is situated on top of the bluff rising from the
Vistula floodplain below. The bluff,
maybe 10 to 15 feet high, is covered with thick forest now and Michał said that
down below is where the Przechowka farmers’ fields would have lain.
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| View to the south, down off the bluff, from the cemetery |
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| Another view to the south, down off the bluff, from the Przechowka cemetery |
There are many stones here although very few of them might
have legible inscriptions. Many of the
stones, according to Michał, date from the 18th Century. Some of them are simply rocks with no
inscriptions at all and very few are the concrete monuments seen in other
Mennonite cemeteries in Poland. No, most
of these are carved stones. There were
times, Michał said, when the families didn’t need or want to inscribe the
memorials and sometimes no memorials were placed at all. Other graves were marked with smaller stones
gathered in an oval and this marked the burial spot of a person whose family
maybe couldn’t afford a larger stone.
The ground here is rather sandy and does not naturally have many
stones. Therefore, Michał pointed out
that any stone found here is likely a grave memorial. Lena and I busily took photos of stones and
sorted through the lilacs looking for more.
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| Gravestones in the Przechowka cemetery |
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| Gravestones in the Przechowka cemetery; this one has the inscription "H U" |
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| Gravestones in the Przechowka cemetery; this one has many illegible letters inscribed upon it |
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| Gravestones in the Przechowka cemetery |
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| Gravestones in the Przechowka cemetery; this stone had an inscription painted on it |
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| Gravestones in the Przechowka cemetery; this is a collection of small stones marking a grave |
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| Gravestones in the Przechowka cemetery |
Right here in this cemetery, presumably, my Ratzlaff, Wedel,
Voth, Schmidt, Richert, and Koehn ancestors from the 17th Century
would be buried. 9th Great
Grandfather and Grandmother (Voth) Ratzlaff; 10th Great Grandfather
Voth; 8th Great Grandfather Hans Ratzlaff and his wife my 8th
Great Grandmother would certainly be buried here as well as their son Hans my 7th
Great Grandfather.
As our time here came closer to an end, I put my hands on
one of the trees that looked to be one of the oldest and just stood silent for
a moment. Could this tree be a couple
hundred years old? Could it have been
standing watch here over the graves of my ancestors for all this time? This was the most moving moment of the entire
trip for me and I sincerely gave Michał my thanks for showing us this place.
Leaving Przechowka, we headed back to the Bydgoska Road and
turned west toward Konopat, another village of the Przechowka Gemeinde. In fact, more Mennonites from the Przechowka Gemeinde
lived in Konopat than in the village of Przechwoka itself! Many families, including Becker, Buller,
Dirks, Jantz, Koehn, Pankratz, Schmidt, Unruh, and Wedel, lived in this
village. The cemetery here is behind a
service station at the northwest corner of the junction of Bydgoska and
Papiernikow Roads. We parked at the
station and Michał pointed out the huge, ancient tree at the entrance to the
cemetery. He said that the Mennonites
would often plant such trees at the entrances and around perimeters of
cemeteries and this one was doubtless a remnant of my forebearers. We entered the cemetery and it was again
covered with familiar young lilac plants.
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| Konopat (Deutsch Konopat), 1909, cemetery circled in red |
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| Konopat cemetery |
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| Konopat cemetery |
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| Old tree marking entrance to Konopat cemetery |
This cemetery was different to Przechowka, though, in that
there was a lot of litter here and the memorials were all from a more recent
time. Przechowka actually benefits from
the fact that the nearby factory limits access.
Therefore, litterbugs don’t enter there and the place has actually
stayed relatively clean. Here at
Konopat, behind a service station at the junction of 2 busy streets, there was
a lot of rubbish. Further, the stones
were almost all from a more recent time.
They were all the large, square concrete type that were no doubt
mass-produced at a concrete factory sometime in the second half of the 19th
century. These stones were probably not
Mennonite but the resting places of some of my ancestors might lie beneath
these graves.
We left the cemetery and continued west on the Bydgoska Road
and Michał almost immediately skidded to a stop and pointed to a house on the
south side of the road. This was an old
Mennonite house, he said, and I scurried to take a couple pics. The house is located on the south side of the
street, about 350 feet from the road, between Papiernikow Road and
Konstruktorow Road. A couple other
buildings surround the old house and it looks like it might still be
habitable. The house is actually within
the administrative boundaries of Konopat and who knows, some of my ancestors
could actually have even lived in this place?
Maybe?
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| Old Mennonite house between Konopat and Dworzysko |
Continuing west of Konopat, the Bydgoska Road soon merges
with the S5 and this was the place that was formerly known as Dworzyska, a
third Przechowka village. Many
Mennonites of the Przechowka Gemeinde lived here as well (the place was named
Wilhelmsmark by the Prussians after the Partitions but the Mennonites never
knew it by this name. Likewise,
Wintersdorf is the later, Prussian name, for Przechowka and my ancestors would
have never called it this).
And now we’re going to need another digression. What about these German names now? We have to back way up and go over a little
history. The Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, or the First Republic, was set up in the mid-16th
Century as an early form of a democratic republic. It was very progressive but probably a little
before it’s time. Each move the
government made was voted upon by the nobility, and each of the voting nobles
had different interests. This was a time
(16th- mid-18th Centuries) before people had any
inclination towards “nationalism”. These
nobles didn’t see themselves as Poles (and neither did the general populace). Generally speaking, they identified with
others who spoke the same language and practiced the same faith. The conception of “Poland” or “Polish
Nationalism” was way too big for them.
Therefore, a vote on national issues was never going to work out. And therefore, the First Republic was doomed.
Poland, the First Republic, hit its peak very early on –
like, the first quarter of the 17th Century. After that, it was a slow death spiral for
the next 150 years. The government was
basically not effective. As Poland
squabbled internally, it was beset with invasions from its more powerful
neighbors. At first, that was Sweden
from the north which invaded repeatedly in the very late 16th
Century through the mid-17th Century. After that, the rise of the Russian Empire
hit Poland hard from the east. At the
same time, Ducal Prussia (later called the Kingdom of Prussia), the successor
state to the old realm of the Teutonic Knights, was also growing, as was the Hapsburg
Empire (Austria) to the southwest.
Poland was in the middle of a gigantic bear-trap.
The Three Powers – Russia, Prussia, and Austria – basically
got together and decided to divide up Poland.
The Polish government was hamstrung since its nobles voted according to
their own interests which oftentimes aligned with one of the Three Powers. The Three Partitions of Poland occurred in
1772, 1793, and 1795. These were
political movements by the Three Powers which actually partitioned Poland. The Three Powers simply divided Poland up
into thirds and took over. The area of
the Vistula delta-valley was taken over by the Prussians and there you go – no
more Poland, and everyone living along the Vistula is now a citizen of the
Kingdom of Prussia. Similarly,
southeastern Polish lands went to Russia and southwestern lands to Austria.
To characteristics that defined the Kingdom of Prussia were German culture and militaristic goals.
Mennonites may have been fine with German culture but the military part
was tough to swallow. After 1772, then,
the new Prussian administration in former Royal Prussia, now West Prussia (all
these different Prussia-terms are great, aren’t they?) began to try to
Germanize names (de-Polonize them) and this is when names like Wintersdorf or
Wilhelmsmark came along. This was also
the time when the Prussians really began to eat into the Mennonites’ pacifist
culture. After a couple decades of this,
the earliest Mennonites were ready to move into Russia where they were
guaranteed freedoms, including freedom from military participation or freedom
to buy land. By the end of the first
quarter of the 19th Century, a great many Mennonites had left
Prussia to establish colonies in Russian Ukraine.
Back to our story then; due to construction of the S5, the
Dworzyska cemetery has to be accessed by turning off the Bydgoska Road onto
Swiecka Road and continuing southwest through the village of
Konopat/Dworzysko. In about ¾ of a mile,
a forest will appear on the right (north) and an unmarked road will seem to
lead back almost due north. This road
leads to the cemetery, which will appear on the right (east) among a bunch of
trees before one comes back to the S5.
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| Dworzysko (Wilhelmsmark) with cemetery circled in red, 1909 |
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| Dworzysko cemetery |
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| Dworzysko cemetery |
The Dworzysko cemetery was very similar to Konopat. Large trees line the perimeter and young
lilacs grow on the floor of the cemetery which is unfortunately heavy with
litter. The large concrete stones sink
into the ground and few if any of them memorialize any Mennonite ancestors.
Continuing on south from Dworzysko, we headed for Gruczno on
the Swiecka Road. The road runs right
along the bluff which bounds the floodplain from the upland, the road itself down
in the floodplain. The bluff is covered
with a thick strip of trees and this can easily be seen by a current satellite
view. We pulled into a large cemetery (Cmentarz
Parafialny; Świecka 9, 86-105 Gruczno, Poland) and hiked to the top of the
bluff where there’s a small picnic shelter.
From on top of the bluff here, one can see out over the whole valley. Przechowka at the base of the Mondi chimneys
at the left (northeast), Chełmno directly across the
river from Gruczno down below with the Mennonite settlement of Kosowo between
them directly on the banks of the river.
Chrystkowo (Christfelde), another Przechowka-associated Mennonite
village finally lying to the right (almost due south of Gruczno).
 |
| View from Gruczno to the southeast. Przechowka is at extreme left at the base of the bluff at the horizon line |
From Gruczno, we wound around the small roads and quickly
came to the old Mennonite cottage in Chrystkowo (Zagroda olenderska – „U
Mennonity”, Chrystkowo 21, 86-105 Chrystkowo).
This is another of these wonderful old arcaded Mennonite homes. This one, Michał says, was occupied by
Lutheran Oledrzy instead of Mennonites.
However, it follows the same building standards as the Mennonite homes
and is marketed as a former Mennonite residence. The house is located back among thick trees
in a wonderfully rustic setting. The
thing that sets this house apart is that it is – for the most part –
unrestored. Most of the wood in the
house is the original wood from the late 1700s.
The biggest modification is that the house has actually been cut down
from its original size. It now is only
the house portion of the house-stable-barn as it was originally built. The stable and barn extended off the west
side of the house and one can today see that the west exterior wall of the
house is different to the rest.
 |
| Old arcaded Olędrzy house at Chrystkowo; Zagroda Olenderska or Chata Mennonitow |
Michał gave us a great tour of the house, upstairs,
downstairs, as well as the adjoining yards.
For me, it was fascinating to see the Ratzlaff and Richert gravestones
housed here. The Efcke Ratzlaffen stone
came from Pzechowka and the Johan Richert (Grandma #48247/PRZ #739 – nephew to
my ancestor, 8
th Great Grandfather Cornels Richert) stone probably
came from nearby too although no one knows exactly where for sure. The property also has an apple orchard rising
in the back where original apples are grown.
These apples are not genetically modified in any way and are descendants
of the original fruit people would have eaten hundreds of years ago here in
this very valley.
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| Eva (Efcka) Ratzlaffen (Ratzlaff) gravestone from Przechowka cemetery |
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| Johan Richert gravestone |
The owners of the house greeted us warmly; the wife
presented Lena with a bouquet of poppies and the husband kissed her on the hand
and vigorously shook mine. They invited
us into their home, also on the property, for a home-cooked, Mennonite-style
meal. The meal included chicken,
homemade bread with fresh butter and cheese, a coleslaw-like dish, and an odd
drink that I think was some sort of rhubarb punch. Fresh coffee and cake and strawberries
straight out of the garden were dessert.
Dining on this meal, in this setting, was really a once-in-a-lifetime
experience. Our gracious hosts insisted
we take seconds of everything. They and Michał
chatted throughout the meal in quick-fire Polish and this only added to the
overall nature of the experience. Lena
and I felt totally lost with the conversation but the food was good and the
setting was quite simply un-matchable.
After lunch, the owners were insisting that we stay
longer. Another couple had come from
nearby – the husband was from Chicago and he had married a local Polish
girl. They also lived in an old
Mennonite house and everyone was excited that we should see this house
too. I politely but adamantly declined
this offer. I think by this point Lena
and I were both exhausted. It was
mid-afternoon, we’d been up already for 12 hours, seen more than 20 Mennonite
villages, visited 5 cemeteries, and still had a 3.5-hour drive back to
Warsaw. I hated to decline the generous
offer to visit the additional house but I felt that I didn’t have much of a
choice.
After a farewell to the Poles, we again loaded into Michał’s
Skoda and headed back to our rental car at Wiąg. I said good bye to Michał, then Lena and I
decided to head to Chełmno to look around just a little bit. We drove through Sweicie, almost within sight
of the castle, through Glugowka, across the river, and right into the old
center of Chełmno, parking the car in front of the Church of St Mary on Franciszkańska
Street. This was the oldest church I’d
seen on the whole trip, built 1280-1320.
We walked around the market just a little bit but I think we were both
too tired to enjoy it. We bought an ice
cream cone in front of the beautiful rathaus (built in the mid-16th
Century, just as Mennonites were entering this valley), leaned on the car and
ate, and soon decided to head for Warsaw.
A momentous day was nearing its end.
 |
| Church of the Assumption, Chełmno |
A rather circuitous route finally saw us back onto the A1
south of Torun and we continued on for 3.5 hours or so until we finally
arrived, exhausted, at the Polonia Palace Hotel in downtown Warsaw maybe
somewhat after 8pm. After a bit of
visiting with our friends from the tour I helped make sure Lena got to her
hotel, the Golden Tulip, walked back to my hotel, and it was finally time for
bed.
