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

The big reunion
 

In June 2018 it was finally time. We set off in our caravan to Orkowo, to the town where my great grandfather was born. The exact date was 16 June 2018. More than 100 years after Józef Tomczak had left his childhood home, I was returning there with my family to visit my relatives.

To be upfront from the start, I can say that it was one of the most emotional days of my life. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the temperature was already 30 degrees early in the morning. We had been able to park our caravan near the Warta where we had a view out to Orkowo and my family’s fields.

At 10 a.m., we were picked up by my cousin Krzysztof Budzyn. He lives in Śrem and works as an historian. Our journey started in Binkowo, the birthplace of my great-great grandmother Stanisława Tomczak, née Bratkowska. When we got there, we visited the farm that had previously belonged to the Bratkowski family. Today, it is no longer owned by the family.

Then finally, we travelled to Orkowo to my family’s farm. It is a small family-run cow and pig-breeding business. The farm was set up by my great-great-great-grandfather Michał Tomczak and his wife Marianna Skorupska on 9 June 1870. My great-great-grandfather Józef and his wife Stanisława then carried it on. In the 1950s, after Józef’s death, my great-grandfather’s sister, Zofia, and her husband Bronisław Pawlisiak took over the running of the farm. Today, the farm is run by Uncle Edward Pawlisiak and his wife Bożena, and their son Sławomir with his wife Renata and their children Dominika and Jakub who all live there.

I can’t really express in words what that first meeting was like. The feelings just kept raining down on me. The people, the farm, the joy, lots of questions, the hot weather, the journey ... I felt like I was in a trance and at times had the feeling that the ground was being pulled from under my feet.

We had brought some old family photos with us from Oberhausen and Aunt Bożena got an old family album out of the cupboard as well. We were all surprised to find that we shared many of the same photos. It appears that in the 1920s, my great-grandfather sent a lot of photos of his children and family from Oberhausen to his parents in Orkowo, and vice versa. Uncle Edward was also able to recall from stories he had heard that my grandmother Henriette used to visit regularly during the holidays when she was a child and a young girl.

The hours we spent together passed in the blink of an eye. Late in the evening, we returned to our caravan. My wife put the children to bed then went to bed herself. I sat alone on the banks of the Warta for quite some time, enjoying the peace and nature and organising my feelings, impressions and thoughts. I was both happy and sad at the same time. Sad because my grandmother Henriette and my great-grandfather were no longer around to see that I was tracing their steps. Happy because, as well as feeling grounded, I also felt as if I belonged. As part of the whole thing, as part of Poland.

Since this first meeting, we have visited the family and Orkowo regularly. The youngest on the farm, Dominika and Jakub, are the same age as our children and get on well together. The plan is that my mother will come with us on our trip in 2021. She would also like to get to know the family in Poland and see the house where her grandfather was born.

As I mentioned at the start, my cousin Krysztof Budzyn is an historian in Śrem. We are related to each other through my great-great-grandmother Bratkowska’s line. He is also very taken with the idea of having my Polish nationality confirmed through formal channels. “Śremski Notatnik Historyczny”, the specialist journal (Number 22) he publishes regularly, ran my family’s story which received a lot of positive feedback. In principle, everyone I have spoken to so far in Poland and who knows the context of my history is in no doubt that I am a Pole.