Remigration or return? Back to the old homeland as a Ruhr Pole

The way back via Warsaw
 

However, I have imposed the greatest obstacle on myself. I want to return to my home country as a Pole. I. e. as a Polish – and not as a German – citizen. This is my deepest and most intimate wish, because as a Ruhr Pole I am also a Pole. My wife has Polish citizenship as have our daughters. My primary ambition is for us to be a completely Polish family. My great-grandfather left Orkowo as a Pole, but his parents and siblings remained there. He lived in Germany with German papers, whereas his siblings in Poland had Polish papers from 1918. Was he any the less a Pole for this reason? Today I have contact with the great-grandchildren of my grandfather’s brothers and sisters. They all live in Poland, with Polish papers. Nevertheless, we have the same ethnic origin.

After receiving legal advice from a Polish lawyer, I was left with basically only one solution: to obtain proof of my family history. Since I had been doing genealogical research for many years, it would be easy for me to present my pedigree. My application would be submitted via the Polish Consulate in Cologne, which would forward the documents to the voivodship office in Warsaw. In February 2017 I made an appointment with the consul to submit my application. My desire to become a Pole by nationality was a cause of great astonishment because it was more common for Polish citizens to aspire to German nationality. I handed over the application to the consul and attached a large number of birth and marriage certificates, translated by a sworn translator.

Weeks and months passed. In November 2017 I received a letter from Warsaw asking me to provide further evidence. As I was not entirely clear what was missing, my wife telephoned the voivodship office directly. The person in charge was very friendly, and eager to help. He requested the original official birth and marriage certificates of my maternal line, or certified copies, along with further proof that my great-grandfather Józef Tomczak was a Pole from Orkowo, in the district of Śrem, in the Province of Poznan.

That is a solvable challenge. The staff at the registry offices in Oberhausen, Bottrop and Śrem have been very obliging and have sent me all the necessary papers within a few days. Older documents are kept in the archives in Poznan, Kalisz and Gdańsk. These are now also available to me. Here too, I would like to mention how helpful the staff have been. I can now provide evidence of a complete maternal ancestry of Polish ethnicity back to 1800. All the birth names and spouses are of Polish origin, and all the birthplaces before 1900 are located in Poland. This should prove the Polish nationality of my great-grandfather Józef Tomczak.

The deadline for submission of the remaining documents ends in June 2018 and I have compiled everything to the best of my knowledge and belief. The formal decision as to whether my family was and is Polish is now in the hands of the Warsaw authorities.

Patrick Barteit, February 2018