Poland's Peasant Heritage

Jane and I made two trips to Poland, one in 1989 when the country was still under Russian occupation and the second in 2018 when it was, once again, a free country. The differences were palatable. The cities had spring to life, with high-rise bank and business buildings surrounding the relic of Communism, the Palace of Culture and Science, that was built and opened in 1955 on the initiative of Joseph Stain as “a gift of the soviet people for the Poles.” The countryside, mired in horse-drawn agricultural in 1989, has few, if any, horses now in the southeastern family villages within Strzyżów County, having been replaced by modern-day agricultural mechanization.

The highlights of our trip included reunions with long-lost families and Mass in our ancestral church of St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr in Dobrzechów. The following photos tell what we experienced.