Dedicated to my Parents

Writing this BLOG has been an effort of LOVE and is dedicated to my parents. They always talked about their love for two countries; the United States of America and Poland. They were proud of their Polish heritage and knowledgeable of its history and current events. As I grew up during World War II and Russia’s occupation of Poland, I listened to my parents express their strong opinions about both Nazi Germany and especially Russia.

Meet my Parents 

Dad

My father, Thomas J. Worosz Sr., was born in a small village; Swielcza, Poland located approximately 10 miles form the city of Rzeszow. Dad was born on November 8, 1910 and immigrated to the USA, arriving at Ellis Island, New York on July 3, 1914. He would always express his love for our Country because his new home, USA, threw him a huge party the next day, July 4, which he always remembered. Dad’s family barely escaped the ravages of World War I which began on July 28, 1914 and involved the Rzeszow area. He was the last of ten children, all of them having died prior to his birth. The Worosz family of three moved to Niagara Falls, New York where my Grandfather was employed as a miner; excavating tunnels for one of the world’s first hydroelectric power plants. My father had to leave high school at the age of fifteen to work in support of his family. He was fortunate in finding a job at a small chemical firm that was eventually purchased by DuPont Corporation. He worked hard and like many immigrants, prospered because he strived to better himself. He was chosen to work in the production of innovative synthetic chemical products; nylon and rayon. He was president of the local union, promoted to management as a foreman and finally as a product consultant. Dad died in January 2000 at the age of 89.

Mom

My Mom was born in Niagara Falls, New York on March 18, 1914. Her mother died when she was five years old and she was placed in an orphanage for three years until her father remarried. Her step-mother was a widow with children and did not offer Mom care and love. Mom had to leave school at an early age and worked cleaning homes of other, more well-to-do, families. After she married my Father, she worked for awhile as “Rosie the Riveter, at Bell Aircraft during World War II. She was a stay-at-home Mom, provided my sister and me a loving home environment, liked to travel but didn’t accept the idea of flying. Mom died in February 2017 at the age of 102; 6 weeks short of what would have been her 103rd birthday.

Married

My Dad married my Mom, Josephine Mroczek, on June 15, 1935 and they had two children, myself, 1938, and a daughter, Jadwiga (Harriette) in 1941.

Epitaph 

My parents laid the foundation for my growth into adulthood. They provided my sister and me with a loving childhood, a strong Catholic upbringing, a respect for others and a college education. Although a blue collar family, my parents paid for sending both my sister and me through college absorbing 90 percent of the cost. I received a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester. Harriette, my sister, earned her degree in teaching from Fredonia State Teachers College. We were not burdened with any debt when we began our professional careers. Until their deaths, both stated that their life’s crowning achievement was having their two children receive an education and graduate from college; an achievement that they were denied.

My recent trip through Poland has been one of my most memorable experiences. I started by traveling to my Dad’s birthplace, Swielcza. I visited the Catholic Church where he was baptized, and talked to the parish priest who provided me with information about my Father’s deceased siblings. I traveled through the village’s narrow streets and met some wonderful people, whom you will meet in my BLOG, that opened up their home and hearts to me. I flew to Warsaw where my 16 day tour began, traveled to every corner of the country over a distance of 1,500 miles. I listened to our guides as they expounded on Poland’s past glories, trials and tribulations. I met people who, themselves, had fought against the Nazis and repressive Russian occupation. I visited numerous museums, marveled at the monuments of history and enjoyed Polish food; although not quite up to my Mom’s cooking. I got to know and love Poland.

To my Mom and Dad...thank you!!

Love Tommy

Prelude - Visiting Rzeszow - Father's Birthplace

Before beginning my 16 day StayPoland tour, I wanted to visit the birthplace of my father; the small village of Swilcza located in the southeastern corner of Poland, a suburb of the Rzeszow. My father, Thomas J Worosz Sr. departed Poland at the age of 3 years/6 months in the Spring of 1914 and arrived at New York’s Ellis Island on July 3; two months before the outbreak of World War I. My father loved America; he remembered the wonderful party that they threw for him on July 4 while he was in residence at Ellis Island!

My father left us his Catholic baptismal certificate which was written in Polish. As I planned for my trip to Rzeszow/Swilcza, I contacted the hotel that I had selected for my stay and asked if someone there might act as my guide; a young man named Grzegorz Ciebiera answered my query. Gregory is a second year aerospace engineering student at University of Information Technology and also worked as a bell hop at the hotel. Taking a copy of my Dad’s baptismal certificate, Gregory visited the church listed on the certificate and arranged a visit with the parish priest so that I might gather information on my Dad’s family.

I arrived in Rzeszow on September 2 and visited the village of Swilcza the next day. Swicza is so small that it has no street names; only house numbers. As I traveled with Gregory towards Swilcza, I visualized meeting the priest, gaining insight on my ancestors, and visiting the parish cemetery to locate grave markers before heading home. I figured that I would spend the afternoon exploring Rzeszow which is the provincial capital of one of Poland’s sixteen provinces and home to a number of universities specializing in aerospace. Oh I was so wrong!!!

Dad’s Family Background in Poland

My Dad was one of ten children born to Jan Worosz and Jadwiga Lech on November 8, 1910. Dad had four brothers and five sisters who all predeceased him before his birth. Jan was a miner/tunneler who first traveled to Niagara Falls, New York in 1903 to help build the Adam Hydroelectric plant; one of the first to use alternating current which allowed electricity to be transported over long distances. After two transatlantic trips to the Falls, my grandfather, his wife and my Dad immigrated to the USA. 

The Priest

With this information, I met with the parish priest, Father Antoni Czerak, who selected two parish hand written record books that contained the religious information on Swicza’s Catholic parishioners; birth/communion/confirmation/marriage/children /death; it was all there written in beautiful cursive penmanship. Below are pictures of Father pouring over the book and the results that he found.

Rather than searching for birth records, Father examined the book that recorded an individual’s death; parents, address, age, cause of death, date of death. Since Worosz was a “common name”, Father used parent’s name and address to identify who we thought were my Dad’s siblings. The following is the information that we could positively identify; the remaining two siblings are unknown.

Katrina	9 years	April 2, 1895
Maria	2 ½ years	April 6, 1895
Ludwiga Czyz (lived in house)	4 ¼ years	April 9, 1895
Joseph	1 year	January 8, 1898
Ludwika	2 ½ years	April 20, 1901
Joseph	At birth	May 26, 1905
Aniela	16	May 10, 1907
Francis	8	July 14, 1909

After about an hour, Father had to attend to parish business and had to terminate our meeting. I thanked him for the generosity of his time and said my goodbye.

The cemetery

The parish cemetery is located adjacent to the Church and is quite large and well maintained. Gregory and I explored every nook and cranny and were unable to find any grave marker of the Worosz family related to my Dad’s side of the family.. Grave markers located in the century old portion of the cemetery were weathered to the point that the writings were unreadable.

 As we walked through the cemetery, Gregory noticed a woman who was freshening flowers placed on various graves, saying prayers at selected grave sites and maintaining the cleanliness of this sacred haven. On a whim, Gregory approached her and inquired if she could provide us with information that might aid us in locating Worosz grave markers. A whim, a chance inquiry, an introduction and thus my day was changed from a simple visit to Dad’s childhood Catholic parish to a marvelous encounter with two very special people!

The woman’s name is Janina Gryrmik and she visited the cemetery to pray for some of her deceased friends and maintain the cemetery’s appearance. After a futile search, she was no more successful than we were in locating a related Worosz. However, she did know a 94 year old woman who might have information. Unfortunately, this woman could not remember much of her past but she knew a man who did genealogy of Rzeszow and the surrounding areas. By chance, Janina knew this man, contacted him by phone and asked him if he might be of assistance to my inquiries. Of course he would help! He would meet us at Janina’s home and bring books that detailed information that he had collected over the years.

We arrive at Janina’s home and meet her husband and son. As we are waiting for the arrival of the genealogist, Janina enters the family room carrying two large plates of pierogi smothered in butter for my guide and myself.....delicious Polish home cooking. As we finished eating our delicious “pierogi” surprise, Tadeusz Rzucidto, the genealogist arrives. He spends time outlining the history of the Rzeszow region, tells us about his family, what he knows of the Worosz family, events of World War II and Communist rule and finally Poland today. First hand information related by a person who lived through some very difficult times.

  

Documents related to the Worosz family

As we were concluding the meeting, Janina enters the room with bottle of wine. We toast each other on our new found friendship. Next Janina enters the room with coffee/cake to top off the afternoon.

I arrived back at my hotel at 5 Pm; emotionally exhausted from the day’s activities. To have met such wonderful people, who extended themselves to befriend me and Gregory was an experience that I will always remember.

Rzeszow the City

Rzeszow is the provincial capital and the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is home to Poland’s burgeoning aerospace industry with numerous universities and manufacturing facilities. Pratt – Whitney has a large engine manufacturing facility that makes jet engines for Airbus commercial aircraft and NATO military aircraft. As with most European cities, it has a centrum town square, numerous parks and historic buildings. Below are pictures that I took during my brief visit.

 

Observation - One interesting event occurred during my visit. The city has a large monument dedicated to the proletariat working class that was erected in the 1970s by the Russian Communist occupiers. After Russian troops departed Poland, a vote was taken to determine if this huge Communist edifice would be removed. The local Polish population voted to keep it as a reminder that it represented their history which helped make them a stronger people. An interesting contrast to what we are experiencing in the USA with the effort to remove vestiges of Confederate statutes/street names/paintings.

 












Below are two pictures. The first is a picture of my Father, Thomas John Worosz Sr. and my Mother, Josephine Mroczek on  their wedding day, June 25, 1938. The second is one of my sister Harriette dressed for my first communion.

My Plan for Visiting Poland

The Plan

Poland is the birthplace of my Dad, Thomas Sr., and paternal and maternal grandparents. It is a country that I knew little about except from what I had learned from my parents and a short visit taken in the year 2000. It is the country that my parents discussed with pride after expressing their love of the USA.

In the early months of 2018, I decided that I wanted to tour Poland and see a major portion of the country. My earlier trip taken with two of my children, Mary and PJ, only included Warsaw, Krakow and Czestochowa. Now, I wanted to see the entire country from its capital, Warsaw, to the Baltic seaport, Gdansk, its mountainous resort, Zakopane, and the numerous cities and villages that surround its outer boundaries.

Using the Internet to explore my options, I looked at numerous tour organizations, their itineraries, tour group size, accommodations, what was/wasn’t included and the cost. After a month of looking here and there, I settled on a tour group, www.staypoland.com, that dealt strictly with Poland tours which varied in duration. I chose the longest tour , 16 days, which met my objectives – see a large portion of Poland  that included the major cities/towns/villages, had a tour group not exceeding 20 individuals, four/five star accommodations which were located centrally within a city/town, and a reasonable cost that included all breakfasts  and fifty percent of lunches/dinners. I could not have made a better choice….the tour was exactly as described and most importantly, our lead tour guide and local tour guides were exceptional….I have traveled to over 90 countries and would rate this tour as one of the best that I have taken; A++.

The StayPoland Tour

Those of us born in the mid-twentieth century are familiar with Poland’s tragic history – Nazi followed by Soviet occupation – a period of time that spanned fifty years.  Warsaw: Poland’s Capital which was destroyed during World War II; Gdansk:  seaport city where Solidarity was born - the beginning of the end of Soviet occupation; Krakow – Auschwitz-Birkenau, Schlindler’s List – tragic history of  Jewish atrocities;  Czestochowa – home to Poland’s Black Madonna Icon…..all of these cities  are associated with Poland.

StayPoland’s tour engages all of the above in addition a visit to Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair – the Fuhrer redoubt during WW II; Malbork Castle:  home to the thirteen century Teutonic Knights; Torun:  birthplace of astronomer Nicolas Copernicus and gingerbread cookies; Gniezno:  ninth century birthplace of Poland; Wroclaw: capital of Poland’s Silesian region and home to 130,000 university students and Zakopane: a lovely ski village located in Poland’s Carpathian Mountains.  

Interspersed within the tour’s itinerary was a visit to a lavender farm accompanied by a delicious lunch; a punt (small flat bottom boat) trip through a forested stream; a raft trip down the Dunajec River which separates Poland and Slovakia and numerous visits to ABC (Another Beautiful Cathedral)/organ concerts.

The route traveled is indicated in the following map.

 

Except for our Torun stay, visits to every other location involved a two or three night stay fostering a more leisurely pace to explore one’s surroundings. Our lead tour guide, Katherine (Kasia) Cznykowska, lives with her husband in Gdansk. Kasia was exceptional in her knowledge of Poland’s history, her ability to communicate with her audience and her main asset; “I make the tour fit the needs of the people and not make the people conform to the tour’s itinerary”. We saw Poland as leisurely travelers not as tourist marching from one site to another. At each major city/town, our tour had the services of a guide who was versed in local history, points of interest and customs. Our accommodations were first class and were located centrally so that we were able to easily “explore”  our surroundings on our own. Each morning we were served a breakfast that offered us a host of options from American eggs/bacon/sausage to European selection of meat/cheeses; of course, a wide selection of breads/rolls.  Most lunches were at our own expense while approximately one-half the dinners were included in the tour. One additional positive was the tour transportation; a 30 passenger bus for our twenty member tour group which provided us adequate space to relax. Rather than changing drivers, we had the services of the same bus driver, Paul, throughout the entire tour. 

Lessons Learned

One of the most enjoyable benefits of traveling is to meet/talk to the people, learn about their lives, culture and country’s history. I came to understand Poland in a different light after listening to individuals who experienced the horrors of Nazi oppression and fought in the Polish underground. I talked which led Eastern Europe in expelling Russia and their oppressive minions back to their homeland. I visited numerous exceptional museums that explored these achievements and spent on average three to four hours at each museum walking through history and learning:

Did you know that Poland

1.       …was found in the 10^th century in the small town of Gniezno located in the center of the country.

2.       …expanded and contracted in size and influence over the centuries. Its magnate leaders selected outside European monarchs as their leader for fear that a Polish leader would become too strong and diminish their influence.

3.       …welcomed various minority ethnic groups into Polish society; not as equals and with some prejudice. These groups which included Gypsies, Jews, Mennonites, and others, were allowed to live within their own communities, participate in business/community affairs and maintain/ practice their traditions.

4.       …was the second country after America to develop a Constitution, May 1791, as a governing document. It introduced equality among townspeople, nobility and peasants and eliminated control of Poland’s parliament, Sejm, from the veto of powerful magnates.

5.       …was dissolved as a country in 1792 by Austria, Prussia and Russia because of their opposition to Poland’s constitution which they felt threatened the control of their own people….Russia received the largest portion(eastern/central), Prussia the second largest (west/northern) and Austria  the smallest (southern)….Poland ceased to exist.

6.       …after 123 years of occupation (ended in 1918 with Treaty ofr Versailles), Poland emerged as a country with its culture in tact. It was recreated after World War I with lands taken from the Austrian/German Empire with its borders ill defined and challenged by its neighbors.

7.       …was attacked in 1919 by Communist Russia with the intent of incorporating Poland into the USSR and using its conquest as an entrance to spread Communism into Western Europe. The Soviet army was defeated at the Battle of Warsaw which resulted in a joint peace agreement in 1920.

8.       …was attacked by both Germany and Russia in September 1939. The country’s government and military never surrendered; the government operated in exile in England while the military formed the Polish Underground.

9.       …3,500,000 Jews lived in Poland prior to the beginning of World War II…..over 3,000,000 were murdered during the War by the Nazis…..today, Poland’s Jewish population is under 10,000.

10.   …was given to Russia at the Yalta Conference as a reward for their participation in defeating Nazi Germany. Poland became a satellite of the Communist Russia for a period of 45 years.

11.   …was the major influence in expelling Communism from Eastern Europe due to the efforts of Poland’s Solidarity movement, moral support of Pope John Paul II and political support of the USA and Britain (President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher).

12.   …established its eastern border in 1990 by forcing Germany to finalize the German/Poland boundaries as a condition for allowing Soviet based troops to exit Germany after the fall of Eastern Germany.

“Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better”…. Harry S Truman