Our Poland Experience—my final wrap up

I only made one short post on Stacy's blog. I don't type well on Tablets or smart phones. Stacy says just trace the word on the key pad, rather than type it, and it pops up. This is what I got—vm7er qgtv smupn8qqt. Trying to type on a Tablet just does not work for me. When I was in college, I used to write everything out in long hand, and then type it. A journalism professor said that the only way to make it in this (the newspaper business) is to learn to think behind the typewriter. I need a key board to write. Now I am home, I have one, so here goes.

What Jeannie, Stacy and I went on during our trip to Poland was a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is not a religious tour or a tour. A pilgrimage is a mixture of three F's—faith, fun, and friendship. We traveled with a group of like minded Catholics, deeply devoted to Mary, Jesus Christ, with focus given to attending daily Mass, saying the Rosary, and the Prayer of Divine Mercy. We attended shrines and holy sites. Many in our group were dealing with some kinds of life issue and looking for healing and hope. We visited St. James Catholic Church, in Teresin, the Franciscan monastery founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe, and Swinice Warckie, where St. Faustina was baptized. We had Mass and Night Prayer at the Jasna Gora Monastery, home of the blessed Black Madonna. St. John Paul II made frequent visits to this Monastery. We had Mass and Night prayer at the monastery, and the place was packed. People crawled on their knees around the inside the chapels and sanctuary as a sign of respect and devotion. One thing that stood out was how Pope John Paul II was at the forefront of the restoration of Poland following WWII—both secularly and spiritually. Following WWII, the Polish people were dispirited, but they are fighters. Our private tour guide said, 'the Polish people are either fighting outsiders, or are fighting among themselves'. Pope John Paul II single handedly inspired the Polish people to rebuild their country, with the Catholic faith the focus of their inspiration to do so. The Poles survived the Nazis, but the Soviets and Communism soon followed, with just another ism for them to overcome. Pope John Paul II has always been one of my heroes, but after this pilgrimage to Poland, he is even more so. Before he was Pope, he inspired a nation. After he became Pope, he inspired the world.

The Catholic Church is thriving in Poland. They have more than 40 seminaries and numerous training centers for nuns and religious pursuing vocations. I was surprised to find that Poland is not only Catholic, but also very Marian in their focus. They are not ashamed to 'be Catholic' in their secular environment.

Jeannie and Stacy covered a lot of detail in their blogs. I won't repeat that here since this post is just a wrap up summary of my experiences. I will close with two final perspectives.

Jeannie's personal journey.

Jeannie's father, Henry Kalinofsky, is Polish. Jeannie arranged to have our driver and tour guide to visit Chomontowo and Pruska Wieka, the two villages of her grandparents. They are both very small, and quite close together. Both lie near the border of Lithuania. I was so pleased to share this special moment with Jeannie, to better understand and appreciate her heritage. She was so caught up in the moment, walking through both these villages. We found a grave yard nearby, but no graves older than 1945. Our tour guide told us that this area was on the front of WWII where Germany and Russia were fighting, and they destroyed the graves. Jeannie found a monument near a nearby church with several names. Stacy took a photo and sent it to Ann Baer, Jeannie's sister. Ann speaks Polish and has done a lot of genealogy research on her family. Ann said that half of the names were some relatives of the family. We also got to have dinner with Zbyszek, a cousin, and Ewa, his wife and their son and his wife. They took us to a traditional Polish restaurant, and the evening was very enjoyable with the food and conversation. Zbyszek looked so much like Jeannie's father, Hank, and his mannerisms reminded me of Hank—the way he smiled, the way he talked. As luck would have it, Henry, Ann and Bart's son, was visiting Poland the same time we were there. What are the chances of that happening? We met in Krakow for dinner and went to the lobby of our hotel for some good conversation.

The Nazi Thing

I am an American of German heritage. This pilgrimage took us to Auschwitz and Birkenau. It is one thing to read about the Nazi atrocities of the distant past, and quite another to be standing at the site and in the buildings where these atrocities occurred. It is hard for me to get my head around the fact that a nation, a European Nation, —a Christian and educated people who were living in the late Thirties and Forties in Germany could devise a government and an entire political, administrative, and military complex dedicated to murdering, torturing, and enslaving millions of people. This was warfare on a different scale. Children, pregnant women, and hordes of innocents were shot, stabbed, hung, gassed with cyanide, and mentally and emotionally brutalized. Too many Germans claimed that they did not know—but most did know what was going on. True, if they tried to join the forces to stop this brutality, the SS would lock them up, or worse. A few brave souls did hide and protect some Jewish people. But, most Germans just went along. When the fighting stopped in Germany, my father, Wallace (Mud) Townsend was one of the soldiers who escorted German people living in the villages near the concentration camps to see up close those sites. He had pictures in his scrapbook of bodies stacked up 10 feet or higher. My father would not talk to me about the war until 1987 when I was in Salt Lake City for 30 days visiting the Salt Lake Tribune. I was there before I took over as Editor and Publisher of the European Stars and Stripes, Darmstadt Germany. My parents drove up to Salt Lake from Las Vegas and over dinner, Mud opened up about his WWII experiences.

All in all, our Pilgrimage to Poland was a profound experience. We experienced the religious, we visited much of the country, we ate the food, we took in the culture, and our family threesome bonded in a very special way. This Pilgrimage took one item off Jeannie's Bucket List, and added a bucket of special memories for me and Stacy.

Over and out here

—Gene Townsend