Polish slave laborer and his family liberated by the 1st U.S. Army near Meggen, Germany. Photo courtesy of the Still Pictures Branch National Archives at College Park, Maryland

​     In this quest to keep Hitler's war effort running at top speed Hans Frank sent men, women, and then entire families as laborers to Germany.  The slave labor program was designed to achieve two purposes. The primary purpose was to satisfy the labor requirements of the Nazi war machine by compelling foreign workers, in effect, to make war against their own countries and its allies. The secondary purpose was to destroy or weaken peoples deemed inferior by the Nazi racialists, or deemed potentially hostile by the Nazi planners of world supremacy.

​     To quote the American and British Prosecuting Staff before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany, regarding the Nazi foreign labor policy: it consisted of mass deportation and mass enslavement. It was a policy of underfeeding and overworking foreign laborers, of subjecting them to every form of degradation and brutality… It was, in short, a policy which constituted a flagrant violation of the laws of war and the laws of humanity.

Documentary Evidence  2233-A-PS. Trial of the Major War Criminals before International Military Tribunal.

Seeber, Eva. Robotnicy przymusowi w Faszystowksiej Gospodarcze Wojenny p.352-353

Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression Volume 1 Chapter X - The Slave Labor Program, The Illegal Use of Prisoners of War. 

Knab, Sophie. Wearing the Letter P: Polish Women as Slave Laborers in Nazi Germany 1939-1945. Hippocrene Books, Inc. 2016

One of the most cherished Polish Easter traditions is the blessing of a basket of specially prepared foods on Holy Saturday that is called swięconka. It comes from the word świcić -to bless. The basket is filled with bread, sausage, eggs, butter, salt and horseradish as well as numerous other food dictated by family traditions such as a yeast baba or placek, a bottle of wine, honey, or chocolates. Tradition dictates that nestled among all the goodies should be the figure of a lamb. 
​

 When placed in the Easter basket or on the Easter table, the lamb can be one that is in the position of standing or lying down. Most importantly, it has a red flag on which a cross is visible or the words Alleluja, a symbol of the Risen Christ triumphant over death. Historically it is made of butter perhaps because in the old days it was readily available plus the people had abstained from butter and all fats during the long period of Lent.  The Paschal Lamb made of sugar made an appearance in baskets when sugar became less expensive and more readily available to the common man. Besides butter and sugar, the Easter lamb was also made from dough baked in special molds in the shape of a lamb.  The lamb was also made from marzipan (almond paste), chocolate and even wax. Regardless of the substance it was made of, the Paschal Lamb continues to be an integral part of the contents of the foodstuffs blessed in the basket and then placed a Polish Easter table.

Wesołego Alleluja! Blessed Easter!  
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​

On October 15, 1941 during the German occupation of Poland during World War II, the Germans issued a decree that anyone who provided any form of aid to Jews would receive the death penalty. For Poland, the symbol of Polish martyrdom for helping Jews is the Ulma family of the village of Markowa. At the end of 1942, Józef and Wiktoria, who lived with their six children welcomed to their home eight Jews from the Goldman, Grünfeld and Didner families. Everyone, including the seventh child in Wiktoria's womb, were murdered by the German police on 24 March 1944. That day, March 24th, was chosen as a day for Poland’s Remembrance of Poles who saved Jews. 

the When Stefania’s mother and brother were taken to Germany as forced laborers, it left her six year-old sister alone and without care and so Helena came to live with Stefania in Przemyśl. By then Stefania was 16 years old.

In 1942 news began to spread that the ghetto was being liquidated. Stefania decided to help.

Through a series of notes smuggled into the ghetto, Stefania agreed to hide the brothers Max  and Chiam if they were able to escape.  To prepare to hide them, Stefania and Helena left the city apartment and rented a small two-room cottage with an attic, which was located on the outskirts of the city. Max managed to escape the train taking Jews to the extermination camp at Belzec and found safety with Stefania. Chaim did not manage to escape and his fate was sealed at Belzec, the same place  where their parents had been taken in an earlier deportation.  Max became determined to get his remaining brother Henryk and his fiancée Danuta out of the ghetto and into the apartment.  In time, several more arrived until there were thirteen Jews ranging in age from ten to fifty living in the small attic space. They could not leave or be seen. For a Pole to help a Jewish person was punishable by death – for the Poles helping and for the Jews being helped.  

The house did not have electricity or running water. A bucket served as a bathroom and had to be emptied daily into the outhouse. Since she was such a young child, Helena did not come under the radar of the Nazis, the neighbors and others in town.  She often emptied the bucket in the outhouse, carried water from the well, or was sent to the open-air markets to buy food because she wouldn’t be noticed or draw much suspicion. She kept watch at the window for anyone approaching the house when the Jews came down from the attic to stretch their legs or for a bite to eat. Stefania left the cottage each day to work in a German run factory employing Poles and used her earnings to buy food for everyone. She also traded clothes and goods for food at a time when food was scarce and had to bought in such a way as to not arose suspicion over the large quantities or the frequency of the purchases. Feeding thirteen people was only one of her daily worries. Discovery was her constant fear.

Things became impossibly dire when the Germans set up a hospital across the road from Stefania’s cottage and started taking over homes and apartments in the area. German nurses moved into one of the two downstairs rooms. Stefania and Helena were relegated to the one remaining room where they and the Jewish residents in the attic lived in constant fear. SS men were frequent visitors of the nurses, staying long into the evenings, eating, drinking and playing music for seven months while overhead 13 starving Jews struggled to ignore the smell of food and remain silent as stones lest they be discovered.
​
Stefania and Helena hid the 13 Jews for a total of two and a half years until Przemyśl was liberated on July 27, 1944. Because of the bravery of Stefania and Helena, all thirteen Jews they hid survived the Holocaust. They were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1979. 

For more reading on these heroic women: The Light in Hidden Places by Sheila Cameron. While listed as a Young Adult book it is certainly of a level that adults can relate to.

Also: Hidden in Silence. Available as DVD  Even though this film was made in 1996 it is still worth watching the courage of Stefania Podgorska as she hides thirteen Jewish refugees in her attic during World War ll.  

Photo credit of Stefania and Helena Podgorska: Jewsih Foundation for the Righteous

​From the earliest days of Christianity, pilgrims have journeyed to Jerusalem to walk in the footsteps once taken by Jesus Christ on the road to Calvary.  Indeed, it was pilgrims who originally performed the stations (although it wasn’t called that back then) when they visited Jerusalem and prayed at the sites of Jesus’ Passion. It took centuries for it to evolve into what Christians today call the Way of the Cross or the Stations of the Cross, the devotion which commemorates the Passion and death of Jesus Christ

The yellow line depicts the route that is believed by many to follow the path that Jesus walked, carrying his cross, on the way to His crucifixion.Photo credit:  https://santeos.pl/droga-krzyzowa-jak-to-sie-zaczelo/

     After Constantine the I issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD which allowed  Christianity to be a freely practiced religion, the holy city of Jerusalem became a mecca, a sacred place of pilgrimage for European Christians. But by the 7th century , the flow of pilgrims was effectively cut off with the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, a control which would not be threatened until the beginning of the Crusades whose goal was to restore the holy city of Jerusalem  to Christian control.

     One of the illustrious pilgrims who devoted much effort to enable Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy Land was Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) who traveled to Egypt with the Fifth Crusade and walked into a Muslim camp to meet the Sultan Melek-el-Kamel. As a result he, as well as his friars, were granted safe conduct to visit the holy places. In 1217, St. Francis founded the Custody of the Holy Land to guard and promote the devotion to holy sites.
The Holy Land changed hands many times between Christian crusaders and Muslims over the centuries with evictions and expulsions on both sides.  In the 13th century the Franciscan order was allowed back into Jerusalem. Their earlier efforts to guard and protect the holy sites was later recognized when the Franciscans were officially proclaimed guardians of the shrines of the Holy Land by Pope Clement VI in 1342. The Franciscans accompanied pilgrims as they visited the sites and told the story of Jesus’ death with time for reflection and prayer at each site. Through their efforts, the Passion of Christ as a spiritual devotion, truly began to flourish.

     William Wey, an English pilgrim, who visited the Holy Land in 1458 and again in 1462, is credited with the term “stations” and interestingly enough, his description of the way a pilgrim followed the steps of Christ was in reverse from what is done today. Instead of beginning at Pilates house, the steps moved from Mount Calvary to Pilate’s house.

     In the 16th century, the path that Jesus would have taken, forced by the Roman soldiers on the way to his crucifixion, was officially titled the Via Dolorosa (Sorrowful Way), or simply the Way of the Cross or Stations of the Cross. (Wikipedia photo)

     In 1686, Pope Innocent XI, realizing that few people could travel to the Holy Land due to Muslim oppression (again), granted the Franciscans the right to erect stations in all of their churches.  In later years Pope Clement XII permitted stations to be erected in all churches and fixed the number at 14 (the number varied over the centuries).  In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV exhorted all priests to enrich their churches with the Way of the Cross, which had to include 14 crosses and to be accompanied with pictures or images of each particular station. In Catholic churches (it is also practiced by the Lutheran and Anglican faiths), The Way of the Cross is depicted in paintings or sculptures placed most often on the side walls of the church.

Polish army walking the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem 1944. Photo: polona.pl

     The Franciscans began to introduce the Way of the Cross, called Droga Krzyżowa, to their churches. In Poland, the oldest surviving Polish text, titled Sposób nabożeństwa droga krzyżowa nazywanego, “The Manner of  Devotion called the Way of the Cross,” was published in Wrocław in 1731. When one counts the number of churches and calvaries (outdoor reproductions of the Via Dolorosa) and crossesthat dot the landscape of  Poland, The Way of the Cross has withstood the test of centuries and remains a very spiritual devotion among the faithful, especially during Lent and most significantly on Fridays during the Lenten season.

A Legend from Kurpie Region

     The Puszcza Zielona, the Green Kurpie Region, in the northeast corner of Poland was a place of erection of numerous crosses throughout the centuries.  On a church wall in Nowogród there was at one time a painting (lost during a remodeling in 1904) depicting Christ and a Kurp (the name given to a person from the Kurpie region) carrying a cross to Golgota.  Adam Chętnik, an untiring scholar of the region, documented that the painting was connected to a popular legend:
 
               The Lord Jesus left Pilate and began the road to death carrying His cross to the hill of Golgota.  He was tortured, beaten, dripping with blood and sweat and stumbled with the heavy load on the uneven road. The Jews who walked along were in no hurry to help.  A Kurp passing by saw this and felt terrible sorrow for the person with the crown of thorns.  He pushed his way through the throng and took the cross on his left shoulder which immediately eased the Lord Jesus. And Jesus looked over, smiled, blessed him and as the Kurp was leaving, said to him: For that, that you have a good heart, may you and your countrymen never be without wood - for your own needs and for crosses.  And there grew the enormous forests of Puszcza Zielona, and the Kurps found themselves rich in wood and everyone who could, wherever they could, erected crosses.

A blessed Lenten season.

Sources:
​Chętnik, Adam. "Krzyże i Kapliczki Kurpiowskie."  Polska Sztuka Ludowa. 1977 
https://www.liturgia.pl/O-Drodze-Krzyzowej
​santeos.pl/droga-krzyzowa-jak-to-sie-zaczelo/

Candlemas (also spelled Candlemass), celebrated on February 2nd is also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ and the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Polish folk tradition, the other title for this day was Matka Boska Gromnicza, “Our Lady of the Thunder Candle,” appeared around 1471 in Płock and began to be used interchangeably with the Feast of the Purification.

Women from the village of Modlnicy in procession with their gromnicza.

An inseparable element of celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Candlemas in Polish tradition is blessing specially made and decorated candles during the service, called gromnicza, meaning thunder, because the candles were used to try and deter storms and lightening that were generally preceded by thunder. How were these candles made?  

In old Poland, when bees were tended in the wild in the forests, the candles were made only from pure beeswax as it was considered the purest of substances, the fruit of the unrelenting labor of thousands of workers of God’s creation. Beeswax candles burned clean and pure, smelling like flowers and honey. Very often the color of the candle could vary anywhere from golden to brown, depending on what type of flowers the bees had been foraging on. The beeswax was collected over the course of the year and even though difficult and time consuming, handmaking the candles was often undertaken by various societies or brotherhoods to burn in church for the glory of God but also to make and sell or to gift family and friends on the feast of Candlemas on February 2nd.

Extracting honey to reach the wax comb in village of Momoty in southeast Poland. Author photo. 1992.

The candles were made using a wooden wheel called in some places a kołowrot (not to be confused with a spinning wheel also called kołowrot) hung on a wooden shaft so that the wheel could move freely. Nails or hooks were evenly hammered across the flat wheel. Depending on the size of the candles to be made, appropriately sized wicks were attached to the nails. In the early years, the wicks made of linen (and later of cotton) by the women on a drop spindle. Some of the candles could be over a yard long requiring 6 or 8 threads twisted together to provide a proper sized wick. 

In a room that was not given to sudden drafts or changes in temperature, or the wax would solidify too soon, hot beeswax that had been heated in a copper pitcher to the right temperature was poured ever so slowly along the wick so that the wax ran down it evenly, requiring a very steady hand. Each candle was made from numerous pouring’s along the length of the wick, time and again until a desired width was obtained. When all the candles had been poured, hopefully while each candle was still slightly warm (or, if cooled too much, one technique was to place the candles under a pierzyna, a homemade goosedown comforter, to warm them again) it was rolled between two wooden planks with just the right pressure to level them into a uniform round appearance. Time consuming and labor intensive!

Artisan in Poland utilizing the pouring method to make candles. You can see more photographs of the tradition of pouring wax to make candles here: izbaskarbow.blogspot.com/2016/01/tradycyjny-wyrob-swiec-z-wosku.html

Unlike today, when most taper candles are about 12 inches long, the gromnicza candles were made much longer, some over a yard long, others shorter but long enough to last through a lifetime of being lit during difficult times and moments​.  A blessed gromnicza had the power to ward off all evil and misfortunes, and believed to protect against storms and lightening and attacks by wolves.  It was lit only during special circumstances  but also during processions,  a serious illness, life crisis, and  in the hands of a dying person or at their bedside to ease their death. 

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 It must be noted, too, that at one time the candle played an important role in in the days when purification of a woman delivered of a child was still a custom not just in Poland but among most of the Slavs. Often forgotten is that Candlemas day celebrates the Purification of Mary after the birth of Christ and that tradition lived on in many countries for centuries. 

   Forty days after the birth of a child, the mother (considered “unclean”) entered church through a side entrance. In her hand she held a lit candle, a gromnicza. The priest sprinkled her with holy water, whereby she could enter the main part of the church, pray cleansing prayers with the priest in front of the altar and, depending on local custom, walk around the altar with her lit candle. Having been purified, she could now rejoin the rest of the congregation at the mass.

Making of gromnicza 2022 at St. Casimir Church, Buffalo, NY . Photo courtesy of Irene Woszczak.

It was customary to tie green twigs of boxwood or juniper or myrtle (myrtus communis) to the candle with a piece of freshly combed flax, but in later years it was  replaced with white or blue ribbons, the color most associated with Mary, to whom the day is dedicated.  In the Lublin region, a candle was decorated with koraliki, i.e., coral beads. Once decorated, the candle was taken to church, where it was blessed.

When not being used the candles were kept on the front wall of the room behind holy pictures, much like the Easter palms or placed in a candleholder and kept on the family home altar where it was lit on all the Marian holidays, to honor Mary, and on any occasion where her intercession was wanted and needed.
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With the passage of time, the craft of beekeeping declined as did the traditional makers of the candles. Candles began to be manufactured from stearine and paraffin,  which were cheaper and even brighter to the eye when lit.  But do they smell like honey and wild flowers from the meadow?

     Today, Thursday, January 27, 2022 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  It is a day designated by the United Nations General Assembly to mark the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp to honor those that died there and but also to recognize others who were victims of Nazism. Today let us remember the murder of Poland’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens-its infants and children.

In the Nuremberg Trials after the war the Nazi criminals were charged with crimes against humanity in that the defendants…”ill treated civilians, imprisoned them without legal process, tortured and murdered them.” Among the charges lodged against the criminals were the crimes against Polish women who were made to work in Germany as forced laborers and the Polish children they gave birth to during that time. 

​The rules of war are clear in the Geneva Conventions that limit the barbarity of war: You do not torture people. You do not attack civilians. You limit as much as you can the impact of your warfare on women and children and other civilians – rules that the Germans ignored.  Polish children, born in Germany during the war not only failed to receive protective status but were willfully, with the full knowledge and consent of the German administration, subject to malnourishment, dehydration and neglect leading to their deaths in catastrophic numbers. 

The forced labor plan was such that the only thing that mattered for the German administration was that each worker work at full capacity no matter the cost to the individual.
 
On July 1943 Ernest Kaltenbrunner, Commander in chief of SIPO and SD issued a directive to all commanders in chief of SIPO and SD regarding the treatment of pregnant foreign women workers and children born in the Reich who were designated as not being racially valuable:
 
1. After giving birth, the foreign working woman has to resume work as soon as possible.
2. The birth should be confined to the portion of a German hospital that was designated for foreigners only. Separation from German women has to be guaranteed.
3. The children born foreign workers were to be placed in „special infant institutions“ of the most simple kind called "foreign child care facilities"
 
Not racially valuable
 
Historian Eva Seeber writes that the lofty or high sounding names given to the centers were to inspire confidence in the new mothers and keep the public ignorant of the reality—that it was a purposeful plan to starve infants to death and to liquidate Polish children.
 
All over Germany, "homes" for the babies of Polish forced laborers were established. As was discovered by Allied forces at the end of the war, infants and young children were, in truth, accommodated in sheds and huts unfit for habitation by anyone, let alone a newborns and infants. Placing children in these centers was mandatory and the mothers were given limited access to their children. Visitation was often limited to Sunday afternoons, twice a month or sometimes mothers were not allowed to see their child at all. The rules were enforced by local police and the Gestapo. There was lack of caring by nurses and doctors, the absence of even the most basic hygienic measures, and most importantly, the starvation of the infants.
Evidence compiled by American and British military forces after the war clearly show that from the time of their establishment, the infant homes for foreign children were houses of death for hundreds, perhaps thousands of Polish and Russian infants.

Just one example: The Velpke Children's Home
 On March 20th, 1946, the British Military Tribunal in Occupied Germany began the trial of Heinrich Gerike and seven other German officials : Georg Hessling, Werner Noth, Hermann Muller, Gustav Claus, Dr. Richard Demmerich, Fritz Flint and Frau Valentina Bilien in the city of Brunswick, Germany for being involved in the killing of Polish and Russian children born on German territory. It was decided at this trial that at the Velpke Children’s Home, between  May-December 1944, 84 out of 100 children brought to the home died of malnutrition and willful neglect.

Velpke was a town located in the district of Helmstedt in the northwest region of Germany. In the spring of 1944, Polish women who were working on the farms in the region delivered their babies in the town of Brunswick.

Based on the rulings that required the establishment of "nursing homes for children of Polish and Eastern laborers," Heinrich Gerike, Kreisleiter of Helmstedt and member of the Nazi party, was instructed by higher authorities in Hanover to erect a home where children could be kept after birth. The mothers were required to immediately return to work on the farms. Even infants who were already born and thriving with their mothers on the farms had to be taken to the home so that the mother’s attention was not divided between her work responsibilities and the needs of her child. It was not a voluntary choice made by the women. They were forced to give up their children. 

     In the spring of 1944, Gerike, along with other local officials named above, chose two corrugated iron sheds with a corrugated iron roof on an unpaved road near a quarry.  One room contained cots, described during the proceedings as "wooden boxes" ordered up from a carpenter, along three sides of the room that could accommodate 25 children. Each child was to have one bed, one mattress (straw), one blanket and diaper. There were 60 diapers altogether. The room had "an enormous stove in the middle of the barracks and there was tropical heat in half an hour. There was no even temperature in the room." It also had two tables. One table held a register book with the names of the children, their dates of birth, as well as their dates of death and cause of death. There was a kitchen, sleeping quarters for the staff, a washroom containing one copper washtub and two baby baths. Other rooms were empty and used as a place to put the dead children. The huts were without running water. All water had to be carried in by the staff. It was without rudimentary tools for measuring infant weight. There were feeding bottles but no one seemed to know if there was a sufficient number. It lacked any means of isolation in the event of contagious diseases. It lacked a telephone for possible emergencies or contact with medical personnel. It looked like a stable.

     The barracks were dirty. There was no hygiene in the place. The children were lying there without diapers. There was not enough linen. The baby's teats (pacifiers) were dirty... I don't think they ever had the same rations as German children and once I saw sour milk... " Gerike never spoke to the doctors, never checked with those responsible for running the home, and admitted that he "never went to the home myself." When the death rate began climbing Heinrich Gerike made remarks that it didn't really matter, that "there was no need to get excited about it because they were only enemies. "
The records showed 84 deaths at the home but ninety graves were found in the vicinity of the home.  The most frequently cited causes of death were diarrhea and general body weakness.

And that was only one nursery.

According to the U.S. Army Command list, 365 Polish and Russian children died at another  “special infant care facility” at Wolfsburg-Ruehen

Special barracks were built to house infants and children born to Polish and Russian women. The “special infant care facility” at Wolfsburg-Ruehen was behind barbed wire. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

​     Another so-called maternity hospital and infant home for Polish and Eastern women who worked in the city and county of Brunswick. The so-called hospital and home consisted of two wooden barracks located at Broitzemerstrasse 200. One of the barracks was in ruins. The second barrack, 42.80 x 12.14 meters in length, consisted of only three scantily furnished rooms which was meant to house the expectant mothers, newborns and older children.  Based on records of the local health insurance office in Brunswick, it was established that between May 10, 1943 to July  1944, 253 babies were born alive in the home. Of these 253 children: 174 died. 

Mass graves of children at Brunswick. Photo taken by the British Military Tribunal. National Archives. Public Records Office . London.

     The above-mentioned “children's homes” are the most well-known, receiving attention after the war by Polish, English and American military tribunals. How many such establishments existed?  If, as German historians say, that every district throughout Germany had its infant homes for foreign children, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Polish children that needlessly died as a result of Nazi policy.
On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us honor their memory.

Cześć ich pamięci.

Sources:
  Public Records Office. London. National Archives WO309/585.  Exhibit No. 520

Biuletyn Głównej Komisji badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce No. 5 1949

Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals UNNWCC Volume VII Trial of Heinrich Gerike and seven others.

Proceedings of a Military court for the Trial of War Criminals held in Helmsteadt, Germany Ruehen Case. London: National Archives. Public Records Office File WO235/159

For further reading: Wearing the Letter P. Polish Women as Forced Laborers in Nazi Germany 1939-1945. Hippocrene Books, Inc.  The Polish translation title is: Naznaczone  Literą P. Wydawnictwo Literacki.
 

​“Kulig. A sleigh ride. This much-loved entertainment of Poles occurred on the 20th of January, 1695 in Warsaw. It was described by Ludwig Klermont, secretary to Oueen Marie Casimire d’ Arquien, wife of King Jan III(*Sobieski). 

Drawing of unknown date illustrating sleigh in shape of a swan.

"A group of well-known individuals gathered at the palace of Daniłowicz which later was to become the Załuski Library." 
​

An example of a hammered dulcimer, a folk instrument called cymbały in Polish.

"​They were followed by sleighs covered with Persian carpets, leopard skins, sables and other expensive furs. Each sleigh was pulled by a pair of horses decorated with feathers, tufts, ribbons and tassels; on each sleigh there were individuals of both genders and riding along the sleighs were young lords from the manors mounted on horses. There were 107 of these ensembles and hard to say which had superiority because all of them had fine horses, expensive furs and servants dressed in Hungarian livery.

At the end there were sleighs in the shape of Pegasus; sitting on it were 8 young men who recited verses that were written long ago by Ustrycki(*Andrzej Wincenty Usztrycki, Polish poet and preacher) and Chrościński(*Wojciech Stanisław Chrościński, Polish poet who also wrote in Latin).

The entourage ended with a branch of  drabantów (*a type of Polish honor guard who carried halberds – an axe mounted on a long pole, topped with a spike, essentially a battle axe )
 
All the guests arrived first to Sapieźynki’s, then to the Princess Radziwiłła; followed by Potocki’s to the young Lubomirski prince; to the Castellan(a member of the Polish Senate) of Lublin  and to Ujazdów (no mention of who lived there). Wherever they arrived, the host would give them the keys to the cellar and the hostess the key to the pantry so the guests could help themselves to whatever they wanted. Music kept playing, there was dancing and then they moved on. The last destination and get-together occurred at Wilanów(*the royal palace) where the King and Queen greeted their guests warmly; everyone was entertained, even the accompanying servants, until late into the night. The entire entourage returned home by torch lights, of which there were 800.”

King Sobieski's Palace at Wilanów.

​It is said that some of the families mentioned above were richer than the king himself, in possession of incredible wealth and equipped with their own armies, let alone an honor guard. But, oh my, to have clapped eyes on those sleighs! Here is another illustration with the sleigh in the shape of a deer/stag.

​The winter entertainment of the wealthy elite was still prevalent in the 1800's as caught on canvas by painters Juliuz and Jerzy Kossack within their lifetime.

Painting by Juliusz Kossak 1887 with sleigh in the shape of a bear.

By the end of the 18th century, the sleigh rides of court nobility disappeared. The custom of more simple sleigh rides through the snowy countryside persisted among the lower social groups for a long time. Here is a fun video that depicts the sleigh ride as enjoyed by the artistocracy as well as more simple folk by modern and historical painters.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCEA7k15cGIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCEA7k15cGI

Text of sleigh ride from book Gry i Zabawy (Games and Entertainment) by Łukasz Gołęmbiowski 
Photos from Wikipedia
​Illustrations from www.cultureave.com

It’s not an exaggeration to say there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Polish Christmas carols.

Collected over the centuries, the oldest known text of a Polish church hymn regarding the birth of Christ dates back to 1424 and was a handwritten translation from the Czech by a man named Szczekany of Prague, and begins with the words Zdrów bądz, królo anielski (Be well, King of Angels). In 1522, five Christmas songs written in Polish appear in a book titled Żywot Pana Jezu Krysta(The life of Jesus Christ) printed by Jan Haller and Hieronim Wietora in Kraków.  One of the oldest Polish Christmas carols from the 16th century and still sung today is Aniol pasterzom mowil (The Angel Told the Shepherds). The author is unknown. The most well-known that survived from the 17th century is
W żłobie leży (In a manger).  The words are credited to the famous preacher Piotr Skarga (1536-1612).
​
 In the 18th and 19th centuries carols emerged from the pens of some of Poland's greatest writers and literary figures, as well as monks, priests, small town schoolteachers, organists and many unknown writers. Among these unknown writers and authors is the creator of the carol that for many individuals, officially opens the Christmas season and is titled Wśród Nocnej Ciszy (In the Night's Stillness)

 It is the carol that opens the midnight Christmas Eve mass, called the Pasterka, the Shepherd’s Mass, in honor of the shepherds called to the stable that night.
​
“In the night’s stillness, voices unfurl
Wake shepherds, the Lord is being born.
As quickly as you can, hurry to Bethlehem
To greet the Lord.”

Postcard published in Warsaw sometime between 1905-1939. It is titled from the lyrics: Wstańce, pasterze, Bóg się wam rodzi...(Wake shepherds, the Lord is being born). Attributed to artist H. Czechowicz

That this carol, and so many others, have survived over the centuries is credited to numerous individuals but the most notable among them was Reverend Michal Marcin Mioduszewski, professor of canon law at the seminary in Kraków.  Reverend Mioduszewski was not just a collector of religious songs that were being sung in his time but actively researched old manuscripts during his life time. As a collector and publisher of religious songs, he compiled the biggest collection of Polish Christmas carols for church services in his Pastoralki and Kolędy (Pastorals and Carols) published in 1843. Wśród Nocnej Ciszy first appeared in an Appendix to this collection when it was published again in 1853. 

Face page and carol from 1908 edition of Mioduszewski's Pastoralki and Kolędy.

The carol appears in that edition as the song for the Introit of the Christmas Eve mass as it does in this 1908 edition. The purpose of the Introit (from Latin: introitus, "entrance") is to open the celebration, to turn thoughts toward the mystery of the celebration and accompany the procession, if there was to be one. In some churches in Poland, while this entrance carol was being sung, a statue of the Infant Jesus was brought to the manger erected within the church and placed there as a symbolic reminder that Christ is being born “in the night’s stillness.” 

For 168 years(!), the faithful in the churches of Poland and Polonia scattered throughout the world, continue to rise from their seats at the opening notes of "Wśród Nocnej Ciszy" at the midnight mass (or first mass of the evening) to welcome, once again, the birth of Christ. It was given to us by an unknown individual from the 18th century, someone whose name remains in obscurity, who will never receive recognition for the joy it brings to the heart year after year - a true Christmas gift handed down through the centuries.

Here is a very old recording of it from 1929 along with b&w images of Poland celebrating Christmas Eve in those years. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBqowFY9NY

​​Wishing you every joy of this holiday season: peace, love and good health. May the new year bring each of you every blessing, and every hope and dream fulfilled.

From the time of the 13th century, the people of Poland began the Advent season with a special early morning mass called roraty.  It is a special early morning mass, said before daybreak and  devoted specifically to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The name for this mass comes from the Introit, the opening antifon or Latin chant, Rorate Coeli, said at the beginning of the mass. It was the prayer of the prophet Isaiah (45:8) begging the Lord for the arrival of a Savior:

"Let the heavens drop dew from above
and the clouds rain down justice
May the earth open and generate a Savior:
Reveal to us, Lord, Your mercy,
and give your salvation to us:
come, Lord, and do not delay."

In many parts of Poland, an ancient wooden horn called a ligawka, was likened to the archangel's trumpet, to remind the people of Christ’s second coming and the Judgement Day. It often
 announced the beginning of advent and called the people to attend this early morning mass.

Ligawka. Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw

The mass is said before dawn, in the dark, as a symbol that the world was in darkness until the arrival of Jesus as Light of the World. A special feature of the mass is the lighting of a special candle decorated with a white or blue ribbon, the colors associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Gwiazda Zaranna, the Morning Star. Traditionally the liturgy began in the dark, the faithful often coming with their own candles or lanterns to light their way.

In this day and age, when many do not have access to churches that still offer this mass, the faithful can still have their own rorata, their own candle that is lit each morning before dawn. It can be their own time of thoughtfulness, reflection and quiet prayer during the Advent season while listening to "Rorate coeli" the Latin chant that opens the mass.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f06qdhO_sEY
​

​In the time before Christianity became firmly established in Poland, there was an important annual ritual conducted by the early pagans to honor their deceased ancestors.  It took place in autumn, a time when the pagans firmly believed that their deceased ancestors returned to the world of the living. The deceased souls were to visit the places where they had lived and if they were well received, would bestow prosperity and fertility in the form of a bountiful harvest. To greet the returning souls, food was left on the table, and a door or window was left open to welcome them.  Food was also brought to the graves of the dead. One of the most important food items to be placed on the table or brought to the cemetery was bread. 

​One of the earliest breads made by the pagan Poles and brought to gravesites during this autumn ritual  was a round, flat, unleavened bread called podpłomyk.  The flat bread was baked on a hot stone that sat over the hot ashes of a fire. It was one of the earliest and most primitive forms of baking bread. One could call it the first “soul” bread as it was meant for departed souls.   (My idea of what it may have looked like - today's naan bread- only the unleavened version)

​Over time and the strong Christian influence, the pagan autumn ritual eventually became All Saint’s and All Souls' Day. The feasts at the graveyards, much frowned upon by the Catholic Church, were abandoned but the custom baking of podplomyk remained for a long time. The word appears in Latin medieval texts of the 15th century, stating that local priests in Poland were still decrying the pagan ritual of housewives making this flat bread from the same dough as that of their regular bread. With the last scrapings of dough, the housewife still made these small flat breads. Only now, instead of taking it to gravesites, the housewives said a prayer at the time of baking in order to ”lessen the suffering of souls in Purgatory who were in most need of help” and was shared with children and neighbors.  It became a different way of honoring those that had died.

​Kobiety przy piecu (Women at the stove) 1888 by Polish painter  Wojciech Piechowski(1849-1911)

The old pagan practice underwent another transformation over the next centuries. Instead of a flat bread, the women, who now had access to yeast and brick ovens, baked small loaves of bread and because it was baked for the Feast of All Soul’s, which is called Dzien Zaduszki (the day of all souls) in Polish, the bread was also called zaduszki – a  different version of soul bread, if you will.  And because they were given to the poor and to beggars, the bread was also called dziady, the Polish word for beggars. 

 Beggars in Kamieniec Podolski now Kamianets-Podilskyi in western Ukraine. From Zygmunt Gloger. Encyklopedia Staropolska

Poland wasn’t the only country in Europe with these lingering practices. The Mexicans made Pan de Muerto or Bread of the Dead. In England they were called soul cakes and given to children and beggars right around the same time on All Hollow’s Eve, later known as Halloween, but later Christianized to All Soul’s. On this night poor peasants and children called "soulers" would go about town singing and praying for the souls of the dead. They would stop at homes and beg for a "soul cake" and promise in return to pray for the household's deceased family members to be released from purgatory. The refrains sung at the door varied from "a soul cake, a soul cake, have mercy on all Christian souls for a soul cake.”  

In Poland, the zaduszki, the “soul bread” was distributed to the beggars who appeared at the entrances of churches and cemeteries at this time of year. It was believed that the soul of the ancestor could take on the look of a beggar, or someone in need, or someone especially vulnerable, so they were always treated with much respect.  

Beggars at cemetery entrance. Illustration by Marian Chodowski from book by Tadeusz Janduła. Ocalić od Zapomnienia

​ What’s more, in exchange for accepting the bread, the beggar would loudly call out the names of the departed and say prayers for their souls, much like the "soulers" of England. There you have it- different people on different continents all honoring their ancestors in their own particular way but at the core is some form of bread, or it’s later sweetened version as a soul cake or cookie.
​
Eventually, beggars in Poland stopped traveling the roads and attending cemeteries to pray for the deceased on All Soul’s Day. Instead of giving bread to beggars, the next transition in these ancient customs was that families made a food gift of some sort to the parish priest in exchange for calling out the names of the deceased in the church on All Soul’s Day. This calling out of names of the deceased and asking for their eternal rest on All Souls' Day is called wypominki from the word wypominać, that is, to keep reminding, that the dear departed have not been forgotten. (See blog November 2019) From there, the giving of food to the priest changed into giving a small financial donation. 

Which brings us full circle to today’s times. Families in Poland, and Polonia throughout the world, still visit the cemetery at this time of year to honor their dead but instead of food or bread, bring flowers and candles (which, by the way, is a substitute for the bonfires that also took place during this time of year) and instead of bread for the beggars to call out the names of the departed, they give a gift/donation to have a priest call out their names in church.

 After all this time, all these centuries, the faint echoes of these very ancient customs are still very much with us.

 “Kto żyje w pamięci swych bliskich, żyje wiecznie.”  "He who lives in the memory of his closest, lives forever.”


References: Biegeleisen, Henry. U Kolebki, Przed Otlarzem, Nad Mogiła. Nakładem Instytutu Stauropigjanskiego 1929