In the morning (Tuesday, 18 June) I was up early (4:15am) to
get a good look at Gdańsk. The old city
isn’t very big. It’s roughly a square,
.5 mile by .5 mile, crisscrossed by narrow streets. The old city is bordered on the east by the
Motława Canal, on the south by Route 501, the west by Route 91. I was easily able to walk to see the Great
Armory, the Rathaus, St. Mary’s church, the Green Gate, the Golden Gate, the
Long Market and St. Mary’s Street, as well as the historic crane, before anyone
else was up. It was my 8th wedding
anniversary, I was walking the old city streets of Gdańsk, and my dear wife was
back home peacefully sleeping in her bed.
 |
| Great Armory |
 |
| Golden Gate |
 |
| Buildings on the Long Lane |
 |
| Artus Court with the Rathaus |
 |
| Green Gate |
 |
| Great Crane |
 |
| Waterfront along the Motława Canal |
On the way to and from Sopot, we passed huge communist-era
apartment blocks in the northwest suburbs of Gdańsk. The largest block is almost .5 mile long and
provides homes for more than 6,000 people.
This was almost exactly the picture I had in my mind of Soviet-style;
state provided housing in the eastern bloc in the second half of the 20th
Century.
After lunch we had the option to return to the hotel or
travel with the group to cemeteries of Orlofferfeld, Ladekop, etc. I opted to return to the hotel and be on my
own for the afternoon and evening since I didn’t have any ancestors (that I’m
aware of) coming from Gross Werder areas other than Rosenort and Heubuden, and
we’d see these in the upcoming days.
Besides that, I needed a little time on my own to explore Gdańsk which
was a major historic point of interest to me.
Gdańsk was likely the point of entry to Polish Prussia for my ancestors and
for almost all Mennonites coming from the Lowlands in the 16th Century. Significant to me, the earliest Mennonite
Richert (my 9th Great Grandfather) was said to have been a cobbler in Gdańsk and it seems like the Przechowka Sparlings, too, may have originated here.
According to some stories, when that first mercenary Ratzlaff (my 9th Great Grandfather) joined the
Mennonites at Przechowka, he was required to travel to the Lowlands to be
baptized. If the story is true, he
almost certainly would have left Polish Prussia from the port of Gdańsk. We also know that visiting VIPs from the
Mennonite churches in the Lowlands, such as Hendrik Berents Hulshoff, arrived
in Polish Prussia via Gdańsk. Hulshoff
tells a story about how he brought “a great chest of books” to Poland from the
Lowlands. Could this chest have been
offloaded by the great old Crane (Brama Żuraw)?
To me, nosing about these little streets and looking at the waterfront
or the Crane, was following in my ancestors’ footsteps even more than was
visiting some of the Mennonite cemeteries.
My first course of business was souvenir shopping. Today was the wedding anniversary so I needed
some amber, pronto. I scratched around
in several shops but talked myself out of all their wares. Finally, I entered a quiet little shop and
expressed interest to the young girl running the counter in buying a
necklace. She was so helpful and
friendly and after I bought a couple things, she repeatedly expressed thanks
and wished me a good day over and over.
The Polish people really are very friendly to tourists.
After the amber purchase I committed to climbing to the top
of the tower of St. Mary’s Church, the largest brick church in the world (it
can accommodate 25,000 people). The
first 200 or so steps were up a very narrow, spiral brick staircase. No handrails meant I had to be
super-careful. OSHA certainly would not
have approved. After the spiral I was up
above the vaulted ceiling of the church and a walkway led me out to the square
tower. I could see the stairways going
up, up, up the perimeter of the tower, and a couple gargantuan bells hung in
the void in the middle. After more than
400 steps I finally came up and out into the gleaming sunshine atop the square
tower; the ground was some 260 feet below.
The sights of Gdańsk were magnificent and I had to make sure to stay
long enough to make sure the climb was worthwhile (for reference sake, the
statue of liberty is about 305 feet high).
After my shopping and climbing I had a wonderful dinner at
Sempre Pizza along the Motława Canal.
Then I was lucky enough to find a shop selling amazing lemon ice
cream. In the States, lemon ice cream
would be sugared down to the point where it’s almost not edible. Here in Poland, deleting a good portion of
the sugar, the sour leman ice cream made me curl my tongue with each and every
last lick and it was absolutely fantastic.
Next morning (Wednesday) we were up and out early for a
church service at the old Danzig Mennonite church which is located (Menonitów
2A, 80-805 Gdańsk, Poland) on the southwest corner of the intersection of
Routes 91 and 501. Originally this
building had to be outside the city gates since it was a Mennonite church and
Mennonites were not allowed to live or do business within the city walls. This church was erected in 1819 and served as
the meetinghouse for the united Flemish and Frisian Danzig congregation. Today it’s a Catholic church. We met another Mennonite tour, this one
originating in Germany, at the church for the service. We had a short service and sang several old
hymns and it was profoundly moving to hear the hymns sung in German in
spontaneous 4-part harmony.
 |
| Danzig Mennonite church |
After the service, we were off for a tour of the Marienburg
Castle in Malbork. This was an
interesting tour but honestly it took a very long time. It’s the largest castle in the world so I
guess the length of the tour wasn’t a surprise.
A proper tour of this magnificent castle would last days and days but I
really wanted to get back to Mennonite sites.
 |
| Marienburg Castle at Malbork |
We stopped for a quick lunch at an Orlen station, and then
were on to visit the cemetery at Heubuden, perhaps the largest, best restored
Mennonite cemetery in Poland. The
cemetery is located just a little to the north of the village of Stogi
(Heubuden). Most interesting to me in
this cemetery was the Tobias Sparling (Grandma #53738/Prz #891) gravestone
which had been located in the Przechowka vicinity and moved to this location by
a Mennonite group (including Unruhs from Alexanderwohl, led by Peter Klassen)
back in the 1990s.
 |
| Heubuden Mennonite cemetery |
 |
| Tobias Sparling gravestone, originally from Przechowka area, now at Heubuden cemetery |
Heubuden was the oldest Flemish gemeinde in the Gross Werder
(Delta area), after Danzig and Elbing.
Mennonites were living here in this pastureland owned by Gdańsk City by
the first quarter of the 17th Century.
In 1728 the gemeinde was made independent from Danzig.
After this we returned to Gdańsk for just a little free time
and then a visit to Zum Lachs for dinner.
I had just enough time to run over to a little shop at the foot of St.
Mary’s church that I had missed the previous day. This shop was selling handmade items of
Kashubian folk art. My Ratzlaff
ancestors, or more correctly, Raclaw (Ratzlaff is actually a Germanized form of
the Polish spelling which is Raclaw or Racław, itself a derivation from
Rocławski) originally came from the area north and west of the Vistula River,
an area known as Pomerania or more properly in Poland, Kashubia. The Kashubians still exist today as an ethnic
minority in Poland. They have their own
distinct language and culture and it’s their folk art that, I feel, symbolizes
the origins of my Ratzlaff surname.
Kashubian folk art is characterized by bright floral patterns – reds,
yellows, and blues – embroidered or painted on white backgrounds. Very slightly abstract, these designs, for
me, symbolize Polish art in the areas south of the Baltic between Gdańsk and
Szczecin. As I entered the shop, the
seamstress was sitting on a couch working on an embroidered wall-hanging. I looked around the shop and she humbly
showed me some of her work. I glanced at
the piece she was working on just then and decided that was what I actually
wanted so I asked her how long it would take for her to complete it? 10 minutes, and I could wait on the rocking
chair on the porch of the shop. How perfect
is that? I wanted a piece of handmade
Kashubian folk art and the artisan herself was finishing the wall hanging up
just for me. I couldn’t have asked for a
better outcome.
 |
| This type of thing, especially the colorful embroidery in the corners, is very representative of Kashubian folk art. |
Meeting for dinner that night, of course, meant more
soup. But Zum Lachs was a fascinating
experience with its sumptuous interior and post-meal shot of Goldwasser. Zum Lachs, or Pod Łososiem in Polish, is a
restaurant established in 1598 by a Mennonite named Ambrosius Vermeulen who
also invented Goldwasser. Dinner was
tipped off with a bowl of creamed asparagus soup followed by pork and potatoes
and finally crème Brule. And then came
the presentation of the shots of Goldwasser.
Goldwasser is an herbal liqueur invented by Vermeulen ages ago. Its real claim to fame is the fact that it
actually has bits of gold flake swimming in it.
The gold as an additive presumably is meant to aid digestion. The drink became so famous that, for
instance, Peter the Great, Emperor of all the Russias, had a permanent delivery
of the drink scheduled periodically to his residences in St. Petersburg. For me, the shot of Goldwasser tasted
something like how I’d imagine paint thinner would taste, but at least now I
can say that I’ve had it in the original location. That’s the one thing that Tsar Peter the
Great and I now have in common.
 |
| Zum Lachs, or Pod Łososiem, is the red building in the middle |
I’ll never forget that dinner but I quickly returned to the
hotel. I was troubled by the fact that
the tour didn’t see more of the Tragheimerweide and Penner/Lohrentz-related
villages and I was trying to work out if I could include these on my route for
our private tour on Friday. I spent the
evening calculating driving times to villages near Elbląg, between Sztum and
Malbork, and finally Świecie.
I’ll admit that by this point I was looking beyond the tour
and on to my own personal excursion on Friday.
Lena, my 9th half-cousin, twice removed, would be coming from Germany to
meet me, and together we’d drive to Świecie to join Michał for a tour of
Przechowka-associated villages. By now I
was wondering how to work in a more thorough drive through the Tragheimerweide
villages as well. Additionally, I
wondered if we should consider passing through a couple villages in the Elbląg
area where some of Lena’s ancestors had lived.
Doing so would necessitate an extremely early departure time on Friday
morning, but I was of the opinion that it’d be worth it. Texting back and forth with Michał, he
indicated that my plan was feasible if we were open to getting up very early in
the morning. I had to hold out hope that
Lena would be open to such a plan.
 |
| Fields with poppies near Einlage |
Thursday morning, 20 June, opened with breakfast in the
hotel and boarding the bus around 9am.
We stopped at a couple villages and I snapped pictures of the beautiful
countryside east of Nowy Dwór Gdański (known by the Mennonites as
Tiegenhof). We visited Jazowa (Einlage)
where I got a lot of pictures of fields full of poppy flowers. Then we had a visit to the cemetery at
Wiktorowo (Wickerau) which is located towards the northeast corner of the
village. My Neufeld ancestors could have
been buried here.
 |
| Mennonite cemetery at Wiktorowo (Wickerau) |
From Wickerau we entered the city of Elbląg from the west
and parked along the Elblag Canal which runs north-south through the city. We walked into the old town on Studzienna
Street, bound for the old Mennonite church which is located at 12 Garbary,
Elbląg. This church was built in 1590
and is the oldest Mennonite church in Poland.
The building is a typical example of a Dutch hidden-church. It was one of the few buildings in the old
town in Elbląg to survive WWII.
 |
| Mennonite church in Elblag, built 1590 |
From here we walked back west across Studzienna Street to a
nice restaurant for a hot and stuffy, but very nice, lunch which of course
included another bowl of soup (this time cold, and full of beets). I’ve never eaten so much soup in my life but
little known to me at the time, this would be the last bowl.
After lunch we walked back across the drawbridge over the
canal (we had to hurry because the drawbridge was due to open soon, making a
crossing back to the west side impossible) and we again met with the German
Mennonite tour group for a joint service at the new Elbing Mennonite church
which was constructed about 1890. This
church was located just west of the drawbridge, at about 9 Warszawska Street
where Studzienna, Orla, and Warszawska Streets all meet. The service was again wonderful with very
touching hymns sung in German. It’s now
a Catholic church and the priest gave us a very warm welcome and provided
refreshments. He was super proud to have
us as his guests. He would stand at the
podium and say a couple sentences in Polish through a bashful grin. A member of the German tour group standing
next to him would give a translation in German and then our tour leader,
U.N.-style via microphone and earpieces, would translate to English for our
tour. It was super-cumbersome but the
shiny little priest, his rosy cheeks, freshly oiled hair, and tightly clasped
hands, was over-the-top excited to have us there. It was fascinating and really pulled at one’s
heart strings to see how these Poles again and again graciously welcomed us
Mennonites back into their communities and churches and to see how they now
care for the buildings and cemeteries we left behind. They seemed genuinely happy to have us return
to their country and they appreciate the contributions we made to their
culture. I was able to make a couple
friends among the German group: one German man whose son had spent time as an
exchange student in high school in Newton, KS, and another couple who lived
near Basel, Switzerland.
After the service, we drove to the cemetery at Rosenort
(Suchowo; Różewo) where my Wiens ancestors came from. We had a short service with the German group
consecrating a gravestone in the memory of Cornelius Warkentin, elder of the
Rosenort Gemeinde toward the very end of the 18th Century who played an
instrumental role in establishing the Chortitza Colony in Russian Ukraine
(Rosenort was established as an independent Flemish gemeinde about 1735. Most congregants were from the
Elbing/Ellerwald area.). The German
hymns sung in the cemetery were stunningly profound and I had to struggle to
hold back tears. The melodies were
familiar to me but I couldn’t understand the German words very much. Even so, even with the lack of understanding
of the words, these German hymns were perhaps more meaningful to me than any
I’ve ever heard or sung in my life. I
stood leaning on a giant old oak tree at the north edge of the cemetery and
listened to the German hymns just as my Wiens ancestors who lived in this
community would have done more than 200 years ago.
 |
| Rosenort Mennonite cemetery |
From the cemetery we had to hurry to board the bus as storm
clouds were approaching from the west.
As we rolled into Nowy Dwór Gdański, it was raining and we had to rush
into the Mennonite Museum (Muzeum Żuławskie w Nowym Dworze Gdańskim) which is a
wonderful facility located in the middle of the small town. If I understand right, the museum is housed
in buildings which used to be a large Mennonite-run dairy.
After the museum tour we headed north along the Tuja (Tiege)
River to Żelichowo (Petershagen) to the Mały Holender (Small Dutchman)
restaurant which is housed in a wonderful old, restored, arcaded Mennonite
house (Żelichowo 31A, 82-100 Żelichowo, Poland). It was beautiful here, cooler in the
post-thunderstorm, soft light of evening.
An outdoor BBQ was underway and we were able to explore the house which
has been repurposed as a bed & breakfast/restaurant and I again got to
visit with my new German friends. The
restaurant prides itself on serving Machandel, a juniper vodka established in
the late 1700s by the Mennonite Stobbe family of Tiegenhof. Interestingly, my new friend whose son
studied in Newton is married to an heir of this very Stobbe family and after
our meal he told me tales of escaping from East to West Berlin as a young boy.
 |
| Mały Holender restaurant |
After dinner, we headed back to Gdańsk via Nowy Dwór Gdański
and the S7 which we’d driven across several times now. I had no idea how my cousin Lena intended to
find the Admiral Hotel in Gdańsk but she soon texted me to say that she had
arrived there and was waiting for us to return.
We had a great little reunion including Lena, myself, and
the Janzen family who was also on the tour.
Without doing the math, I honestly assume the Janzens are more closely
related to Lena than I am. While taking
Lena to her hotel, we decided that the two of us would indeed leave the Admiral
Hotel the next morning at 4am and tour the area near Elbląg where her ancestors
came from before continuing on to the Tragheimerweide area all before 9:00 am
when we were due to meet Michał near Świecie.
There wouldn’t be much sleeping this night.
No comments:
Post a Comment