A Day of Victorious Research

Czyzewo is where it all started. This was the town where my great-great-grandfather Moishe Scwartz married my great-great-grandmother Paja Rythenberg, the town my great-grandfather Joseph left from to hit the US. Thanks to our terrific guide, we now know that 3 previous generations of Schwartzes (now Stewarts) lived in and around Czyzewo. It was and is a small farming community a couple hundred km NE of Warsaw. There's not much to do there today, meaning it must have been really bad years ago. I'm glad my great-grandfather left, as he must have been bored senseless, not to mention under-employed and discriminated against. Also, there's the matter of me not being here if he hadn't left.

We had just about the best day you can in the field of genealogical research. Our guide took us directly to the relevant locations, frequently bypassing lengthy lines of cranky Poles via a mixture of Government Savvy and heavy flirtation with the armada of middle-aged lady overseers. Immediately he dialed up the original books of handwritten records: marriage records, birth records, and death records. With a tiny bit of oversight, we were permitted to paw through these willy-nilly.

First we found the marriage record for Moishe and Paja (in 1890!). From that document, which listed their parnets -- brand new information for us -- we were able to research backwards, digging up assorted marriage and birth certificates until we got back to approximately 1815, which is around when Napoleon instituted the system anyway. It was a homerun of a day.

Before this, we didn't know anything except that my great-grandfather - Moishe - lived in Czyzewo. Today I know about 15 or so more ancestors, including information about where they lived, the time they lived, and- in some instances - even their occupations. (Lots of "day workers" in there, oddly.)

I must say, there is an incredible level of comfort connected to knowing that your family came from somewhere, that they just didn't show up from nowhere. My great-grandfather came over to New York alone, which has cultivated a lone wolf image in my mind, a feeling of cultural isolation. Anti-Semitism aside, it's evident that the Schwartzes were very much part of the Czyzewo community, that they had a home.

For those Polish-speakers out there, this is the official documentation of my great-grandmother's birth certificate from the Lomza vital records office, from 1865. Wow!

Atrocity Tourism

Put our toes in the waters of Atrocity Tourism this morning. We started with the only Jewish synagogue that survived World War II in Warsaw, which was lovingly restored but seemed a bit antiseptic. As one of our hostel-mates observed yesterday, Poland's Jewish sites have the feel of "here's where Jews USED to live."

Then it was to Pawiak Prison, built by the Tsar in 1830-35 (not sure which czar), but best utilized by the Nazis. During World War II, the Germans imprisoned 100,000 Varsovians (people of Warsaw) there, killing an average of 20/day. That was a statistic that helped me wrap my mind around the program. Then they shipped another 30,000 or so out to the death camps. It seemed that Pawiak was not used for Jews, who were all in the Ghetto, and got shipped out separately.

All that's left of the prison are a few cells -- the Germans blew up the rest when they blew up most of Warsaw. But the cells alone were difficult. Then, on to the Ghetto sites.

The current neighborhood around the Ghetto is, well, nice. Quiet apartment blocks, pleasant trees, and few reminders of the horrors of the war. There is a large memorial to the Jewish fighters in the doomed Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 (above) as well as another, less grandiose memorial, and a marker on the spot where German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt to ask forgiveness for the crimes of Germany against Poland.

There's also a big memorial to the train station where 300,000 Jews from the Ghetto were shipped to the death camps, but no train station. Just a nice apartment building. Must be an odd place to live, even if you don't believe in ghosts.

This afternoon was lighter. Checked out the Royal Palace, which is very odd. The Germans flattened it (naturally), so the Communist government of Poland rebuilt the Royal Palace to commemorate a government that it despised! Go figure. We did find the urn of ashes of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, a Polish freedom fighter in the American Revolution who came back to Poland to lead an unsuccessful rising in 1791. (Photo of me with Tad, above).

Then no Sunday in Poland is complete without a stop at church. We caught the final portions of late-afternoon mass, then scampered into Sacred Heart Church to observe the site that contains the heart of Frederic Chopin.

Tomorrow, we head out of town with a guide to look into some family history sites.

Warsaw Warriors

We have arrived!

Lufthansa labor actions and massive jet lag have been unable to derail us. We found each other easily. Our bikes are assembled and in largely functional condition. Nobody appears to have digestive problems (yet). The hostel where we're staying celebrated its third birthday yesterday, translating into free brewskis for guests. (No, brewski isn't actually Polish.) And we have yet to get into a major disagreement so far.

Some quick observations on Warsaw: it's a quiet town. Real quiet. Maybe that's because it's a Saturday in late July and everyone's off the beach, but for the nation's capital there isn't a lot of energy. Which, on the plus side, makes for nice and easy bike riding.

Today we checked out the Warsaw Uprising Museum, which commemorates the 180,000 Poles who revolted against German control in 1944. The Poles fought back because they assumed the Soviets - who were amassed on the other side of the Vistula River - would crash in and clean out the Germans. Instead, Stalin waited for the Germans to put down the revolt and kill off all the Polish leaders, as those savvy ultra-nationalists could be trouble later. 180,000 Poles died.

The museum looked very modern, but I don't think it was that effective--I'm still not sure how the Poles lost, other than overwhelming German strength. I also found the museum very Catholic-heavy, with much greater space devoted to important clergy as opposed to, say, the Jewish situation. Then again, someone in the hostel made the point that this is really a museum for the Poles, not the Jews--who have many other memorials--and while I'm not completely swayed by that argument, there's probably some value in that. A lot of value in that if you ask a Pole.

Butterflies

Today's the day. The flight to Warsaw leaves at 11:25 p.m., and then it's under way. One way I can tell this is not really a vacation is that I have butterflies, just like before a hearing in court. There are some reasons for that.

First, our research has been productive, but unsettling. Most of what we thought we knew about my grandparents' origins has been called into question.

My grandfather was supposed to be from Czyzewo (now called Czyzew-Osada), but now it seems his family lived mostly in Wollomin and Lodz. So we're going there, too. My grandmother's family was from cosmopolitan Odessa. She always said so. We KNEW it. Now it seems they came from a tiny village 200 kilometers to the east, the Ukrainian equivalent of Nowhere (and it seems that in Ukraine, Nowhere is really far from Anywhere You Want To Be). And the village was founded by Dutch Mennonites.

So things keep changing. This is the least organized trip I have taken since 1970, I drove across the country with Rich Zweig and Bob Aldrich. Actually, that trip was better organized than this one. We're spending the first five days in Warsaw, taking some side trips to places connected to my grandfather's family. Then, 25 days later, we'll fly home from Odessa. In between? Well, you can see the map. That's still roughly what we think we'll be doing. But it keeps changing.

How many concentration camp sites do we need to see? How long do we want to stay in Krakow, or Budapest? And will this aging corpus hold out through all of the cycling? A lot of my butterflies, I think, are anxiety over the physical challenge of the trip.



So, off we go, chasing the roots of the man in the photo, my father and Matt's grandfather, Milton Stewart -- they guy who changed the name from Schwartz to Stewart. As one of his cousins recently remembered him, he was always "a man on a mission." And maybe his most basic mission was to be American in every way, something he achieved by taking on a great deal of public service. He succeeded so well, in fact, that we don't know too much about his (and our) family -- and what we thought we knew turns out to be a bit shaky.

I couldn't resist the group photo on the right, a picture of Milt at an occasion honoring the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration, of which he was the first Chief Counsel. You can see where we get our fashion sense.

May the Schwartz be with you.

Bike in a Box

It's real.

My bike--working nickname: "Reggie"--has been officially dismantled--the handlebars, seat and pedals removed--and packed by stereotypical San Francisco hipster bike mechanics into a nondescript cardboard box for which United Airlines is itching to charge me an arm and a leg to transfer from SFO to Frankfurt and, Airline Luggage Handling gods willing, to Warsaw. From there Reggie goes to a local Polish bikeshop, where he will be reconstructed into his normal, sturdy, lumbering self.

I've been riding Reggie for a couple of months now, and our relationship is something short of love, possibly even short of like. He weighs a ton; his gear-shifters are stupidly placed; his cables were not set correctly when I received the bike. He moves in traffic like a drunk friend at a wedding; dopey, embarrassing, and all mine to clean up after.

On the other hand, this week I've been on my road bike to work (working nickname: Bananamobile). I feel like I've been shot out of cannon, like the parachute's been taken off my back. I got my 20-minute commute down to 15, and I know for a fact I can smoke any other bike on the road. Still, everyone says that Reggie's a good workhorse, ideal for dilapidated Eastern European roads and random acts of tourist terrorism. Stay tuned for a full report.

As for having Reggie all boxed up, I've been filled with the excitement - and responsibility - of having a secret weapon waiting to be unleashed. It reminds me of the day of my 22nd birthday party, driving back from the liquor store with my roommate. The car was loaded with a keg, booze, some of the best pizza in the country, and a couple of carefree college seniors six weeks from graduation. We observed that we were a party on wheels, that ANYWHERE we chose to set up shop would be the site of indelible, incredible memories.

That night we hosted,one of the best parties I (vaguely) remember attending, ever. Here's to Eastern Europe dishing up another gem on Friday.

Research in Many Languages

Last week I went to downtown D.C. to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, to try to do some research about the Schwartz family in Poland. So far we know what happened to three of my grandfather's seven siblings during World War II and the Holocaust. That leaves four more.

The archival research facilities at the Museum, and the support provided by the staff, are remarkable. The professional researchers there appreciate how difficult it is to track people through the welter of the 1930s and 1940s, and how many records were destroyed by war. They even provide free photocopying!

But for monolingual people like me, the project is daunting. The relevant records could be in any of four languages. A few are in Polish, from before the war. With many exotic pronunciation rules, Polish words confound me. Schwartz, for example, is most often spelled "Sczwarc" in Polish, but also could be spelled a couple of other ways. Other records are in German; some are in Russian, with that old nemesis, the Cyrillic alphabet. And the recollections of Holocaust survivors are mostly in Hebrew, which makes Cyrillic look easy!

These linguistic challenges create real misunderstanding. In The Lost, author Daniel Mendelsohn (a linguist himself) describes how his search for the story of a lost family was misdirected by his misinterpretation of a Yiddish word used by his grandfather. (There's a lot more in the book, too.)

We have already had a concrete experience of that. Our Ukrainian research associate, the first person to read my grandmother's passport who knew the Cyrillic alphabet, has questioned what town she was actually born in! This could be a long road.

Clarity of the Road

I'm very much looking forward to the mind-cleansing effect of an extended cycling trip. There's nothing like steady exercise and stunning views to wash free the clutter from my head, to lengthen my media-warped attention span, to allow for deep thinking (I can't tell you how many hundreds of novel/work ideas come to me on my bike ride). To let my hands uncramp from typing all day long. To not answer the phone or deal with hundreds of emails a day. Back to basics: physical exertion, sweat, nature, family. The simple, difficult act of cranking pedals over and over again.

As you might discern, it's been a long day of work. This'll be the last inspirational schlock artwork job you'll see, promise.