Once a train station (Jewish friends in Bärwalde)

     When, in1934, my mother, Edith, was christened, a Jewish friend of the family was present and gave her the above hand-made cloth. ("ES" stands for Edith Schultz.)
     When Edith and her Aunt Marthe fled the Russians in 1945, they could take very little with them, but they did take this. When mom emigrated to Canada in 1951, she again took it with her.

An abandoned train station in Bärwalde (Barwice): the last time my mother saw her "Jewish friends" was here

Mom's "mother" (actually, her Aunt Marthe) ran a business, as became necessary when her husband (my mom's stepfather) died in 1941.

Marthe had many good friends in town who were Jewish—evidently in the garment industry. My mother remembers some of these friends well.

This old house was perhaps the home of mom's doctor—likely Jewish.

Yesterday: wandering through the graveyard, finding no familiar names.

Yesterday: a random gravestone

My mother and her Aunt Marthe at mom's father's grave, c. 1941

Mom's Bärwalde home, during the war. It was destroyed during the Russian advance

Edith this morning in Bad Polzin, Pommeria

My father this morning

Walking through Połczyn Zdrój this morning

“Park Zdrojowy “

The old hospital is very near the park. This zone seems in between park and hospital.

We appear to be experiencing wonderful, albeit hot and humid, weather

A part of the old hospital where my mother spent many weeks as a 9 and 10-year-old.

I cannot get her to speculate where her hospital room was located. Dang.

Another part of the building

So many of these little towns have magnificent churches

Downtown hustle and bustle on Tuesday morning.

Połczyn-Zdrój factoids:

• Połczyn-Zdrój (Polish name)
• Bad Polzin (German name, some time after WWI)
• Bad = “bath”
• The town has warm mineral springs, which have been exploited in sanatoriums allegedly to cure rheumatism.
• In 1905 the town had a population of 5,046 predominantly Protestant inhabitants (36 Catholics. 110 Jews), which in the year of 1925 had grown to 5,960 persons.
• Before World War I, the town was known as Polzin. It acquired the name Bad Polzin between the two World Wars.
• In March 1945 the region was occupied by the Red Army, and after the end of World War II it was put under Polish administration. The inhabitants were expelled by the Poles.
• Today, the population has grown to about 8,600
• Its famous park is called “Park Zdrojowy “