WEEKEND IN BERLIN

Karen lives in Bonn, Germany, and we hosted her when she was a student at Reed College in 1989.  We have always maintained contact.  We visited them in 1997 and they came to Oregon in 2006.  When she heard that we were coming to Poland, she worked very hard to insure that we could get together while we were here.  She secured an apartment in Berlin and we drove there to meet them.   What a wonderful weekend of visiting, site seeing, and eating.  We drove the German Autobahn from the border about 90 kilometers west to Berlin.  Along the way we stopped for lunch in a rest area.  We left our car in a long term parking lot at the Berlin Shonefeld airport and they picked us up there.  Our first stop was afternoon dinner at a restaurant near a lake on the east edge of the city. 

    From there we headed down town to take a boat for sight seeing up the Spree River through the heart of Berlin.  We boarded near the “Jimmy Carter Smile” building.  This is what the Berliners refer to it as.    We passed by many buildings that I can’t remember the name of, but of significance was the Bundestag and Reichstag which are newly built since reunification.     Here are some of the others.              

            

Berlin has changed since we were last here.    The East German symbol, the TV tower is still prominent on the skyline, but the downtown is now a mix of refurbished old and spectacularly new architectural concepts.       The main train station is a prime example. 

The apartment we stayed in belongs to Karen’s sister-in-law, Sonia.  She leases it out to tourists and business people who are looking for more than a hotel room.  We found it very comfortable for 4 people.  If you are interested you can make arrangements through www.homelike.de.vu .  This website shows the apartment we used.  We had the master bedroom and Karen and Guenter used the living room.

  Here’s the view from the balcony.    Sunday we met with Karen’s brother and his family.  We had Thai food and enjoyed meeting the boys.            

Karen had brought presents for her nephews.  As you can see, legos are loved by boys all over the world. 

Football practice starts early here.    This weekend was a special highlight of our trip. 

Thank you, Karen and Guenter, for all your gracious hosting.

ON TO CZARNKO’

We chose Czarnko’ as a central spot to stay while finding the last two villages we wanted to visit.  Piotrowo is where Marlene’s great great great grandfather died.  It’s another small village in the center of an agricultural area.   
Just outside of Czarnko’ we found a pleasant hotel.  Here’s a view from our room. The facility is primarily used for weddings and other celebrations so it is set up for serving lots of people.  There were only 6 rooms for rent, but the dining room was large an airy.  The food was great, most of the vegetables coming from their own garden.   In Czarnko’ we also came across the first community garden we have seen in Poland.                  
While touring like we do, we always carry some bread, cheese, and fruit with us and then find a pleasant spot to stop for lunch.  Today we found a grassy area beside a small lake for our picnic. 
On the back roads around the area we visited this old church. Found an airport and stopped to talk to the mechanic who maintains this spray plane   and came across the first sign of the Soviet influence on this country.

MORE RESEARCH

After an overnight in Poznan we checked out of our hotel, decided to move the car so we wouldn’t get a parking ticket, and headed for the archives building.  Moving the car turned out to be a big mistake because where we ended up parking was further away from the archives than where we had parked at the hotel.  Then, walking on the cobble stone streets from the car to the archives, Marlene tripped over a cobble stone that had somehow come dislodged and was sticking up 2 inches higher than all the others.  She fell hard to the street and lay there for about a minute taking inventory of her body.  Fortunately, no serious damage!  A bruised knee, bruised hand, and bruised shoulder, and nothing broken.  She’s fine now, but we were very lucky.  

The archives in Posnan is one of the bigger ones in Poland.   I was amazed that some of the original records stored here are actually German records or more accurately described as records written in German script, kept stored from churches that at one time were German, but now are Polish.  These are the records we were interested in.     

Kacia, the researcher that Marlene has been working with, helped set us up at the archives by ordering several books.  This had to be done a day in advance.  We also had to register using our pass ports to gain access to the research room.  Once inside, the books were delivered and we were able to search through them at our own pace. We kept a record of the books we searched by taking a picture of the index notation of each book searched.  Having no luck finding any new records, Marlene did a little research into her other love, sewing and fabrics.

SOMETHING OLD AND SOMETHING NEW

A couple of contrast to share today and then some miscellaneous shots.  We went back to one of the villages we visited yesterday because the priest was supposed to be in his office from 9:00 to 10:00 this morning.  Sure enough he was there and he welcomed us in.  Marlene again showed him our letter of introduction and he immediately had us take a seat and  he disappeared only to return quickly with an arm load of old record books. Soon, Marlene had her computer out with the genealogy program running and the two of them were searching for connections between new records and old. We didn’t find anything at all that would add to what Marlene already knew.  So, we headed to our next stop, Poznan.  On the back roads, we came across this church.  It seems in this country every church is slightly different in color and texture.   The old roads led us to a brand new toll road.    We drove this for a few miles, but soon decided to go back to our favorite driving mode which is to stay on local highways so we can see how the people live and what the towns and villages are like.
In Poznan we met with the researcher Marlene has been using to help her in the Polish research.  She set us up at the State archives by accompanying us there and filling out the necessary forms so that we can go back tomorrow and actually pull some records and check them ourselves. Back in our room, we finished off the strawberries we bought yesterday from a roadside vender.  Then it was off to coffee in the square of old town Poznan.    Coffee was interrupted by thunder and lightning.  The square cleared of people, but fortunately we were protected by the awning so we sat out the storm. 

LOOKING FOR ANCESTORS

We started the day at a farmers market here in Leczyca, where we stayed last night.We weren’t looking for anything in particular, just looking.  What a variety!Everything a farm family could need.
 
From the market we headed out on small country roads to find the villages that Marlene’s research had revealed. The first on the list was Romartow.Now, Romartow today is just a cross road with a few houses.  At one house, some young women and their babies were visiting in the front yard so we stopped and showed them a letter we had prepared that told what we were doing and the names of the people we were searching for.  By the time we finished we had the whole family involved in the conversation.Not shown in the picture is the grandson who must have been 6 years old and the great grandmother who was standing on a balcony shouting down her ideas to the group on the ground.  Of course, all their advice was in Polish and all our questions were in English.  We learned that we were in the right place and that any records might be in the next town at the church.  The village or what remained of it looks like this. It has it’s identity   marked by a monument. 
The next village was easy to find, but the roads got a little narrow. 
  Here we found an old Catholic church and the parish house.  The young priest was home and welcomed us into his yard.  He was wearing shorts and a tee shirt and spoke very good English.  He suggested that the records of the Lutherans in this area would be kept at the City of Plock which was about 50 kilometers north.  He also got out his cell phone and looked up the number of the Minister and told us to use his name as reference.  Unfortunately the minister didn’t answer his phone, so we drove to Plock to see if we could find the church.  Plock turns out to be a big city, 130,000 people, and we were unable to find the church.  Even the information center did not know where it was.  We spent some time checking out Plock which is situated along the Wisala River downstream from Warsaw.  The river at this point looks almost as wide as the Columbia at Portland.