It's good; it's over (Bärwalde)

     Bad Polzin, Pommern, in 1902. In those days, the town was German. It seemed to specialize in sanitariums. Still does.

     Here's a pic of the Hotel Marta Spa in Bad Polzin (nowadays, Połczyn Zdrój) in West Pommern (northwestern Poland). It's very European, very quaint. Near the park, which is fabulous.

     When my mother was ten (in 1943), she suffered some sort of appendicitis. She was taken to the hospital in Bad Polzin, where she received various treatments for two weeks or so. Then she was sent home, but, after a few weeks, she took a turn for the worse and was brought again to the hospital, where surgery was performed, removing her appendix. (Oddly, her sister, Ilsa, came down with the same problem and received surgery at the same time.) Mom remembers recuperating in the hospital and occasionally walking through the well-known park nearby.
     That park was fabulous then and it is fabulous now. I don't think I've ever seen a nicer park. Everything is blooming, and the smell is overpowering.

     18 kilometers from Bad Polzin is my mom's actual hometown of Bärwalde. Today, we took mom to this town that she hasn't seen since 1945, when she, her "mother," and her sister escaped from the Russian advance. All they took was what they could carry in a child's wagon.

     I'm afraid that, today, she found things to be disturbingly different than they had been. Her home had been destroyed. Some of her relatives' homes were unrecognizable. 

     She couldn't find any of her relatives at the cemetery. Not her beloved step-father, no one. Evidently, a photo of her had been etched onto his gravestone. But none of the old German graves remained.

     "Well, now I know that the town of my childhood no longer exists," she said. "It's good. It's over."

     We returned to Bad Polzin for dinner. The downtown area is very old, very quaint. Not many restaurants, though.

     We went to a restaurant that was happy to have any customers at all, even German/Americans. The cook made a special pizza for us. Nice people.

Mom's family, on her father's side, circa 1912. That's father Hermann at far right and Aunt Marthe at far left. Marthe and her sister (far right) worked at the time for the Berlin Opera

Rebel Girl's Poetry Corner: Memorial Day

Memorial Day
By Gregory Orr

1
After our march from the Hudson to the top
of Cemetery Hill, we Boy Scouts proudly endured
the sermons and hot sun while Girl Scouts
lolled among graves in the maple shade.
When members of the veterans’ honor guard
aimed their bone-white rifles skyward and fired,
I glimpsed beneath one metal helmet
the salmon-pink flesh of Mr. Webber’s nose,
restored after shrapnel tore it.


2
Friends who sat near me in school died in Asia,
now lie here under new stones that small flags flap
beside.
It’s fifth-grade recess: war stories.
Mr. Webber stands before us and plucks
his glass eye from its socket, holds it high
between finger and thumb. The girls giggle
and scream; the awed boys gape. The fancy pocket watch
he looted from a shop in Germany
ticks on its chain.

*

South to Polzin: beautiful countryside

This morning, we headed south/southeast toward Polzin, just a few kilometers from my mother's home town of Bärwalde, in Pommern--now in the northwest corner of Poland.

The countryside continues to be beautiful. This is a typical road scene (just north of Polzin).

No, really, this is what it looks like, mile after mile (er, kilometer after kilometer). And the towns are seriously quaint.

We're staying at the Hotel Marta Spa, which is very European. Some of the staff dress as nurses. The food is very, um, healthy. I'll show you more when I have time later. Looks great. All is well.