My grandmother Shoshana was a “Jewish Polish Grandmother” – chicken noodle soup, a carp fish in the tub for fattening until one morning it disappeared and there was ‘gefiltefish’ (traditional Jewish dish) for lunch, running to buy live chickens at one end of town and then to the ‘shochet’ (Jewish traditional butcher) at the other end, always carrying baskets with foodstuff – a 100% Jewish Polish grandmother. Shoshana was born in Zakroczym, a small agricultural village, on the bank of the Vistula River, northwest of the capital Warsaw, where a rich Jewish culture had evolved. In November 1941 all Jewish residents were gathered in the ‘rynek’ (town square) and brutally expelled to the Jewish ghetto in the nearby town Nowy-Dwor. From there, their fate was similar to that of six million others. Today, not a trace remains to thousands of Jews who had built their lives in the town for about 1,000 years.

This is an account of an expedition to discover my personal roots and those of the Jewish people in exile in Poland.

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Going out on an expedition to Poland is accompanied by mixed and very strong emotions. The days preceding departure are packed with thoughts, anxieties, and expectations – a combination difficult to describe. For those who do decide to go, and indeed board the plane, a rich and fascinating emotional experience is guaranteed.

Grandmother Shoshana’s three daughters, Sari, Rocha and Drora, and I decided to go and boarded the plane. We were joined by cousins Hila and Ram. Shoshana Margulis Kohn sent us on this expedition in an unwritten legacy. Grandmother Shoshana, or Ruzka as she was called in childhood, was born and raised in the town of Zakroczym, 32 Km NW of Warsaw. She managed to escape before the outbreak of WWII and arrived in Palestine in 1934 at the age of 17. Her mother accompanied her to Constanta Port in Romania. They parted at the port in tears and her mother told her they would never see each other again. Shoshana’s mother, father, two sisters and three brothers perished just a few years later. Shoshana and her mother never did see each other again. Together with her three daughters I am embarking to Shoshana’s birthplace. This is not an ordinary expedition; it is an expedition into history, to discover what was, to discover what happened, an expedition into Grandmother Shoshana’s stories from her childhood.

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Warsaw

Immediately on exiting the Frederic Chopin airport a surprise awaits the visitor. For someone who is visiting Poland for the first time reality doesn’t come near your expectations of an East European country on who’s soil two thirds of the Jewish nation was massacred. Warsaw is blend of ancient and new, ruins from WWII, magnificent cathedrals, communist monuments, alongside Marks & Spencer and Kentucky Fried Chicken in shopping malls that would not embarrass any Western European city. Someone who has already been to Poland will also be surprised. Warsaw is in the midst of a great construction wave. Warsaw’s skyline is littered with dozens of construction cranes. All the glass towers were built in the last decade. A city with 1.8 million residents doesn’t resemble itself 10 years ago. Poland’s entry into the European Union assures an accelerated continuance of the process.

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We pass huge residential buildings, plain and gray – “proletarian neighborhoods” - remnants of the communist rule.

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The streets are crowded with people, cars, busses and trams whose tracks remain from pre-WWII. Warsaw is a big and bustling city. A beautiful boulevard, which once was “the forbidden city for Poles”, the Nazi regime’s sanctuary, hosts many foreign embassies. Opposite, the past presidents’ palace is now a formal government guesthouse.

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The younger generation worships capitalism – you will rarely meet someone under 25 that does not have several jobs, tries to study simultaneously, surfs the Internet and speaks a little English. On the other hand, those 40 years and over are lost in a new world of materialism and ambitiousness.

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The city streets are flooded with peddlers trying to sell their goods for a few Zlotys. The city attracts both the Polish elite and the desperate. Over 40% of the Polish economy is still government controlled and traditional communist bureaucracy still exists.

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