In July of that year, my wife and I decided to go to Podlasie. She wanted to visit a good friend who presently lived, after a long stay in Rome, in a tiny town close the region town of Grajewo, while I had at least a one-day jump in Vilnius, where my holy memory came from, my mother, to see the place where they lived, where their parish, commune, vicinity was. It was a village of Rataliszki, erstwhile called a urnal, in the parish of Korwa, the municipality of Mesjagola.
It is an ancient pre-war territory of Vilnius-Trotsky, or part of Vilnius, and not, as he said, a popular publicist, Mr.Zychowicz, part of Lithuania of Kowieńska.
I heard a lot about these places erstwhile I was young, and I wanted to see what was left of all of this until today. Last time I was in Vilnius, although in another part of it, in 2001.
And from the beginning of the journey, before we got there, we felt a affirmative change. In 2001, the situation was that roads in Lithuania were better than in Poland, and now it turned around. A fresh two-lane expressway S-61 (Via Baltica) runs to the border, from the Polish side, while on the Lithuanian side we have old roads, including a section of the road around Kowna, which is already so saddened that it needs renovation.
First halt in Mesjagola. The central point is the Church of Assumption. We were fortunate due to the fact that we could enter, as the church was open, and this was due to the fact that the baptism of a kid from the Polish household took place there. Everything took place in Polish and here we witnessed how the local community grew rich with a tiny Polish woman.
In this area Poles inactive make up the majority, which can be easy seen with the Polish language, and not only in the church, but besides in the street or in the store. At the church there is simply a museum in honor of the prelate priest Józef Obrembski, called the "Patriarch of Vilnius", who survived 105 years and served the local community during the hard times of the USSR.
It is amazing how local Poles managed to organize and keep the Polishness of these areas, despite the fact that so many left after the war, as well as were subjected to repressions and exports to Siberia, from which, if they returned, they would alternatively return to Poland alternatively than to Vilnius.
And it should be remembered that trips and exports afraid the most active part of Polish communities: teachers, officials, clergy, all those who feared russian power.
The fact that, in specified conditions, those who remained, were able to keep Polishness and managed to organize, in political terms, almost a miracle. They should only be helped, alternatively than trying to run any political games, attempts to set up or trade in business, as it was.
The next visited place was Korwie, the seat of my mother's parish. The Old Church of St. Joseph is surrounded by a cemetery. The necropolis is well-maintained, with many monuments, even before the war, although the fresh ones that arise in place of the elders dominate.
Even though it's a weekday, there are quite a few visitors. With any brief conversation, specified as a household from Gizycka wandering, like us, after the footsteps of their ancestors. They claim that the gravestones, here in Korwiu, are full of names that are presently present among the inhabitants of Giżycka. This is the effect of postwar migration from the local areas of Vilnius to Warmia and Mazury, in this case to Giżycka.
But not only local and Polish visitors meet in the cemetery. I have a fewer words with a Pole who visits the graves of relatives with his wife. It turns out that they live in Moscow; she inactive has Lithuanian citizenship and came to visit her household in Cork. The inhabitants of this tiny village migrated far away.
Not far from Korwia, possibly 10 kilometres, lies the Pickles, mostly known for having a manor home there, before the war, and frequently a Marshal Piłsudski. The court is modest, but it is wonderfully located on a large lake and in a beautiful park. Interestingly, it would be pointless to look for any mention at the place that the manor and park had any connection with the individual Piłsudski. Before the entrance there is simply a plaque, and on it information, besides in Polish, that it is ... "a park of biodiversity". This ridiculous pettyness of Lithuanian power so feared, even today, Piłsudski.
Finally, trying to get to where my mom's household home was. The fact that Rataliszki no longer exists, I knew, but on the basis of the pre-war topographic map, I determined the place where this home stood and I hoped to scope this place and find even any trace of the old habitat.
We reached Janówek, where there are inactive any old houses. We proceed on ft and scope the last buildings behind which and the dirt road ends.
In front of the home we meet a host who welcomes us in Lithuanian, the Polish language does not speak, but it turns out that he can be heard in Russian. He explains to us that we can't go any further, due to the fact that there's a swamp and a swamp. He is friendly, speaks eagerly of himself and of his presence in Poland: Zakopane and Gdańsk. In Poland he liked it and brought a tractor from Poland.
He speaks Russian so well that I thought he might be Russian, but no, the name Gribauskaitis indicates it's Lithuanian, which he himself confirms.
It has been 30 years since the Russian Empire withdrew from these areas, but Russian language is inactive a means of communicating with people surviving here.
Finally, he advises us to effort to scope the habitat that we are curious in from another location.
We don't have time for this anymore. possibly next year we'll effort and come for a while, due to the fact that this full vicinity is beautiful and worth getting to know, especially due to the fact that it's part of our national heritage, our soul.
Stanisław Lewicki
