Agata Tumiłowicz-Mazur
@aga_tumilowicz
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Scholar & Writer ✍🏻 Ph.D. NYU Comparative Lit, I write on archive, nature, memory, Lower Silesia // Words in @TheBrooklynRail @apofenie @_triangle_house ...etc
Lower Silesia, Poland / Warsaw
Joined November 2015
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I am part of the 2nd generation born in the so-called "Recovered Territories"– formerly German lands that are now part of Poland.
In the spirit of Lower Silesian pride, I'd like to give you an idea of what it means to live surrounded by traces of a foreign population.
🧵
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Some highlights from today's session of the parliament.
1. Still thinking about seeing Lech Wałęsa in tears.
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Ukrainian artist, Lyubov Panchenko, who starved for a month during the Russian occupation of Bucha, died at the age of 85. She was one of the artist who during the Soviet censorship revived Ukrainian art.
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Stunning new sculpture dedicated to all Ukrainian mothers who suffered from the Russian military invasion appeared on Prague's Dlouhá street. It's called Vinok / The Wreath and was created by Czech artist Veronika Psotková. Fantastic and heartbreaking at the same time.
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A shy petition to the world:
Do you think it’s possible to return pierogi to their natural grammatical state? “Pierogi” is already plural.
With additional “-es” they’re burdened with 2x plural, what gives them an impostor syndrome, making them feel like they are never enough…
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There are many other moving, jarring and fascinating traces of the "absent presence" of those who lived here before, so I will be updating this thread as it's impossible to fit this experience in just a few Tweets. But in short – Lower Silesia is an extraordinary place.
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Someone here told me they were surprised to see that Lech Wałęsa is still around.
So let me use this weekend's downtime to show you that not only is Wałęsa still around but he's living his best life.
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Macron gifted the Pope a book and caused an international scandal. Wanna know how a single book's life can affect intl.relations? Read on.
The Vatican posted a photo of the book,Poles noticed a stamp of the academic reading room in L'viv(then🇵🇱territory),all hell broke loose.
🧵
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Living in a formerly-German house is probably not that different than living in any other house except that it often comes with surprising discoveries. Here: newspapers, circa 1905, used as a primer for the wallpaper & discovered during the apartment's renovation.
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...or these containers, probably found in the attic once, now holding things that certainly are not coffee, pasta, or rice, but constantly reminding us that they belonged to mysterious former owners.
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I was surprised to discover that Czesław Miłosz was an “annotate books” kind of guy. It’s fascinating to see how he interacted with the text, heartwarming and familiar to see he did it in two languages.
Behold his copy of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.
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My mom just sent me these pictures and I can’t stop laughing:
communist-era Polish police car (fiat 125p) currently parked in Queens, New York
Why?? How?? 🤣
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Very briefly: As a result of post-WWII border changes, Germans were forcibly deported from their former eastern territories, and Poles from PL Eastern Borderlands were relocated to the West. For Poles, this shift felt very much like moving into someone else's house. Come and see.
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I've been staring at the communist "Recovered Territories" propaganda posters to get a sense of the visual backdrop of the transition and I've found some veritable gems so here's a small thread I will be updating as I'm keeping watch.
["I'm keeping watch", W. Zakrzewski, 1946]
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It also means making certain... ahem, "curious discoveries in the attic, like these Nazi-era gas masks...
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...and this combo – growing up Polish among German objects – usually leads to a certain incongruence and misuse or rather, repurposing, like this accounting book I found somewhere around the house and used as my diary growing up...
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My childhood was filled with time spent staring at the fire burning in different German stoves that made the houses warm, but recently became defunct and mainly serve as random pieces of furniture (also, too heavy to be thrown out...), keepsakes of the bygone warmth.
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Interrupting your feed to deliver breaking news from Poland: chłodnik season is on!
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Taking a moment to celebrate Czech electrical engineer Oldřich Homuta who in the 1950s invented this contraption: a portable electric oven aka Remoska or prodiż. Grandma prepared food in it but - this is silly - I’ve never seen nor baked in it until today. An amazing thing!
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However, most of the time it just means living surrounded by German objects that pop out of the closets unexpectedly, like these hangers...
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In my series “German things you didn’t know survived the war and are still in use by Poles” I want to give you a glimpse of an amazing research day I just had so let me take you on the most unexpected journey through artefacts that survived the 1945 border change.
🧵
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In September Lech Wałęsa turned 80 and celebrated with a giant schabowy /fried pork chop/ in place of a birthday cake.
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New Prime Minister Tusk talking about his Free City of Danzig roots, dedicating his win to his grandfathers, alluding to his Kashubian descent - and this has been mentioned a couple of times today. Important, as we don't really talk about these complex layers openly, still.
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The last vote in the Polish elections was cast at 2:48 a.m. in Wrocław (Lower Silesia) by a woman named Agata.
This just made my day and the day just started.
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Seeing the whole parliament singing four stanzas od the national anthem together and thinking "oh wow, maybe there ARE things that can unite us, after all!" *gasp*
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Nearly 80 years have passed since the Warsaw Uprising, and some buildings are still wounded. As if if the bullets that pierced them have twisted the fabric of time.
This time - Mokotów.
Gets me every time.
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...just to witness Jarosław Kaczyński shattering this sublime moment when storming the rostrum without permission and yelling at Tusk "I don't know who your grandfathers were, but I know you are a German agent". 💁♀️
So back to Germany, Ladies and Gentlemen.
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Everything points to a record voter turnout in Poland since 1989.
Let that sink in.
More people were motivated to vote today than in the first partially free elections when communism was at the point of decay.
Voter turnout then: 62,7%
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Czy siła internetu czyni cuda?
Zgubiono kindle (2nd gen) w pociągu IC🤦♀️Dla kogoś to może być mało wartościowa rzecz, dla nas –b.ważna, sentymentalna pamiątka po tacie, wypełniona wielką ilością jego książek i notatek. Czy ktoś przypadkiem znalazł coś takiego?
Proszę o retweet.
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Some final takaways:
The irony of it all is, this scuffle was caused by Kant's Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.
It would be great if someone could trace the book's fate between Lviv and Paris...but either way, bookplating and stamping is one hell of an amazing thing.
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Olga Tokarczuk chatting with her readers on a crowded Jerusalem Tel-Aviv train is a vibe.
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I honestly don’t think anyone owes Russians anything at this point, Pushkin included. Ukrainians are completely entitled to reclaim and de-russify their public space as they see it fit. My question is though, why are Russian voices given the floor, once again?!
“What can I say when I hear that a Pushkin monument is being dismantled in Ukraine? I just keep quiet and feel penitent,” writes Russian-Swiss novelist Mikhail Shishkin. “And hope that perhaps a Ukrainian poet will speak up for Pushkin.”
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Poland is:
Your 86 year old neighbor meeting you downstairs in passing and saying “You know what? You deserve a bottle of vodka!” and 5 min later there she is, ringing a bell to your place, a bottle of her homemade blackberry liqueur in hand.
And now what?
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Colors and tastes of my childhood in one picture:
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At first I thought it was impossible to find such letterboxes in my humble Lower Silesian town anymore - because who would keep an 80+ year old door? Turns out I wasn't looking hard enough. Here they are.
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One day I will get in trouble for sneaking into people’s stairways but this was not the day.
Beautiful 114 year old tiles found!
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Back in the Polish, formerly-German lands and today I’m pondering these porch tiles. They’ve been here for a 100 years, and they were the first thing my family saw when they arrived here after the long journey from the Eastern Borderlands in July 1945. So many steps witnessed!
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I’m Polish so Fat Thursday comes with certain civic responsibilities… 🤭
Happy Tłusty Czwartek!
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A short Polish-Jewish story, with a funny twist in the end:
This 18th c. Orla synagogue, located in northeastern Poland, has been a monument to the community of the former shtetl. It's the best-preserved synagogue in that area. On its side, an inscription in Hebrew was visible...
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The city of Warsaw put up a bunch of blown-up 1950s/1960s-era home furnishings for Christmas and I just can’t 😭
The nostalgia.
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Every time Warsaw lulls me in its modern vibes, these unlikely historical witnesses sneak up on me - buildings pierced by wartime bullets. It’s as if the movement of the bullets was still here, piercing the fabric of the city. Takes your breath away.
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I'm passionate about archives, so naturally I find it fascinating that Wałęsa loves archiving himself. He regularly asks people to take pictures of him and posts them on social media. He's very active on fb and he used to microblog a lot "just to show people I'm still alive."
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Ok I must share this.
Polish Public TV (gov-backed) announces the win of the ruling party and talks about how “historic Poland” votes PiS (blue) and the “Recovered Territories” vote “liberal and left” (orange).
We’re always the bastard here 🥲
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Anyway. Hope you enjoyed this short series and that it gave you a glimpse into this Polish icon's current lifestyle.
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The reach of my Tweets is poor lately I’m going to try to break the spell with this secret Polish gem:
Ogórkowa.
My Aunt’s cucumber soup made from pickles.
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Back in 2016, got a small gig to translate a recording of an interview with Pani Ola,a Pole who lived near Oświęcim during WWII.Spent a few weeks listening to her soft voice, writing down her memories, knowing it was research material for a script.
It was "The Zone of Interest."
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He still travels a lot and loves Miami so don't be surprised if you run into him on the beach one day.
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The local synagogue didn’t last, no plaque commemorates it. A few matzevot but no cemetery. Only subtle traces remain, you must look for them to remember. This Holocaust Remembrance Day I think of the prewar German-Jewish inhabitants of my hometown.May their memory be a blessing.
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Guys, Łódź is a state of mind.
(yes, this is fresh concrete)
📸 Marcin Paszkowski.
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Stating the obvious here, but the Czechs invented the most refreshing summer drink.
Introduced in 1960 & still going strong.
Amazing.
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Always on the lookout for Eastern European references in pop culture so here’s another gem:
Joe Goldberg from
#YouNetflix
using one of my favorite Polish idioms 🙈 :
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Snowstorm turned the Warsaw sky into a fuzzy static screen.
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Traditional Polish mizeria.
I always loved the name until I started learning foreign languages and understood it comes from Latin ‘miseria’ so well, misery.
I can deal with this type of misery.
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Once a symbol of Soviet oppression, today it is dressed in the colors of the Polish flag. There’s something captivating about redefining symbols and meanings, domesticating them, moving on and moving forward.
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...baths of all kinds. Here - living his best life in goat's milk.
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Back to the grind with this one - found in my aunt’s old garage.
If anyone knows what this says or means, please me know, I’m clueless.
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Some personal news, a milestone of sorts:
After months of research and a long,wild creative process, I am done with the proposal for my Lower Silesian nonfiction book. I started submitting it today and sure, I know the road will be long, windy and arduous,but today feels good!🎉
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Bathroom fixtures were among those items that lasted the longest in use, until the first "serious" apartment renovation. "Warm" could be the first German word I've learned – and actually fully, corporeally understood the meaning of.
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I've been blown away by the attention my Lower Silesian stories garnered (I thought no one would be interested). And now there's a question that's been on my mind... does anyone know which publishers would be interested in publishing a creative nonfiction book on the subject?
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...or in wine! [worth noting: in his post, he wrote "it was not my idea. Preserving my corpse in wine."]
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Shivers down my spine every time Warsaw comes to a complete standstill at 5 pm on August 1st. Cars brake, pedestrians stop midstep in the pouring rain, sirens wail. Making the city's loss material, at least for a minute.
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Czytelnia Akademicka in L'viv was a Polish student scientific society active between 1867 and the beginning of WWII. Speculations ensued whether the book was stolen (and if yes, by whom? Germans? Russians?) and therefore should be returned. Some Poles are really, really upset.
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I didn’t know what it meant when it happened 20 years ago. EU? Aren’t we in Europe already? - I thought. And only later - step by step, year by year, slowly - I saw and felt what that day meant. And it was amazing.
Happy 20 years in 🇪🇺 Poland!
And 🇺🇦🇬🇪- waiting for you🤞🏻♥️
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I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather lately so I got reminded about all the terrifying Polish homemade remedies I’ve been treated with when I was a child. The hands-down biggest villain of all was this guy: onion syrup. Raw onion slices layered with honey/sugar. A nightmare.
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Isaac Bashevis Singer's Magician of Lublin and his balancing act above his hometown🫠
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In love with tram rides through spring sprinkled Warsaw.
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A little swerve from Lower Silesia with this gem: famous Warsaw corset tiles (gorseciki). All the rage in the 1930s, a staple of modernist architecture. These little things witnessing so many steps over the years, along with my little personal milestone today - priceless.
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Favorite Polish story of the day must be this bearded vulture showing up on the kitchen windowsill of an apartment building in Poznań. Turned out the bird was reintroduced into the wild in France.
Let that sink in. He flew all the way from Western Europe to end up in Poznań🥲
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But water is what he seems to enjoy the most.
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Fun fact from the Polish elections in Lower Silesia:
One of the polling stations is located in Villa Wiesenstein - the former house of Gerhart Hauptmann, the German Nobel laureate for literature. So yes, some Poles are choosing the next government from Hauptmann’s basement.
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Remember how the Soviets left graffiti on Reichstag to mark their takeover?
So today I found a similar mark, in the tower of my local town hall, just sitting there. Some Ivan guy leaving a trace of the takeover in May of 1945.
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Meanwhile, the French did their own investigation and found out the book must've been in Paris already around 1900, as this is when, allegedly, a bookseller named Lucien Bodin had it in his possession.
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Be it Jewish tombs in Poland, Polish in the Eastern Borderlands or, like in this case, German in the Polish “Recovered Territories”, one thing is equal. There’s nothing sadder than the sight of an abandoned, nameless and an overgrown grave.
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Today in the Polish Parliament - a blast from the past, an unlikely alliance of politicians from my childhood 😄
At the front, two presidents: Lech Wałęsa, Aleksander Kwaśniewski,
In the back, the prime ministers: Hanna Suchocka, Jerzy Buzek, Waldemar Pawlak.
The 90s are back!
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Things that persist in Lower Silesia, port of call: Sausage
A couple of historians from Wrocław, Mr. and Mrs. Sobel, took it upon themselves to recreate a recipe for the legendary Jauersche Bratwurst. The sausage was, ehem, "brought back to life" in the Polish city of Jawor.
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Why the hell would you fight for a defunct, dilapidated railway bridge built by the Germans in 1905? Well, we 'adopted it' over the years. We've been coming to admire it with our grandparents, good friends and first dates. It became our heritage; it's part of who we are now.
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Possibly the strangest-looking locative in Polish is:
'w czyśćcu' ( 'in purgatory')
Any foreigner wants to take a jab at it?
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A lot of Poles are watching today’s session of the parliament but I get easily distracted so let me tell you what’s behind the speakers: bas-reliefs in wood designed in the interwar period and then reconstructed by Aleksander Żurakowski. Who do you think is the guy on the left?
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Woah, my previous thread blew up! So happy to see y'all liking the Lower Silesian stories.
These aspects of material culture and belonging are constantly accompanying me in my writing, so if you would like to read more, here is the story of my attic:
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But sometimes they simply lurk in the background, you need to have your eyes open and work harder to find them. Who would have thought – snow can be of help!
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I went to my town’s biannual antique market and found a lot of disturbing stuff. It made me wonder what in the world we consider “valuable”, and “of the past.”
*trigger warning & apologies for unexpected Nazi/Third Reich-related items*
🧵
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Heart of Warsaw but it could be anywhere in the Central-Eastern Europe. Colorful, nameless apartaments filled with countless pairs of “Slavic eyes.”
(sorry, I had to 🤭)
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Mom-in-law rolled out an archive of recipes last night – a collection she inherited from her mom, who in turn documented her mother's cooking. A plethora of Polish-American recipes, mainly from the mid-20th century.
Of course, I raided it.
Come and see some of these gems.
🧵
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Today I'm trying to comprehend the size of tenacity and courage that 80 years ago allowed the young Jewish women and men to rise up against the Nazis.
I try to imagine the shapes of that strength...and I have no words.
Glory to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
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Based on the troll comments left under my posts here, I should not talk about the German past of the region I'm from. Nor should I talk about the communist past. So basically I should not talk about the past. Or, simply put, I should not talk🤡
That forced erasure is fascinating.
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Turned out, the inscription reads:
"It is forbidden to urinate on the walls of the synagogue and the houses of midrashim."
Well, at least a tiny bridge of understanding between old and current inhabitants of the area was built🙂
/Story published on Synagoga w Orli, fb page/
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Just realized my mom was exactly the same age I am right now when communism fell.
And frankly, I’m unable to fathom what it would mean now to suddenly face a reality so vastly different from anything I have ever known in my life. What a crazy experience that generation had.
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Here’s a love story:
They met in the Eastern Borderlands during WWII. In 1945 they traveled west to the “Recovered” lands (same train, different cars). She liked men with dark, curly hair, he was blond but got a perm to make sure he was her type. Love is good 😊
Gran & Grandpa.
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Today in Poland was the first day of Matura (high school exit exam).
I never took it.
Instead, I went through every level of American higher education, got a PhD, and my Polish mother STILL holds the lack of Matura against me, expecting me to take it one day🤣
#PolishParents
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The most treasured object in my family is this butcher’s knife. It belonged to my great-grandfather who didn’t survive WWII. The family brought the knife from the Eastern Borderlands and with every gesture of cutting the bread, my grandma would tell me the stories of the past.
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Marriage with a historian.
You're confused about one aspect of history, you ask a single question and you get a free impromptu lecture with maps and all. Suddenly, the world makes much more sense.
Honestly, highly recommended!
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Of course, most traces of the past are to be found outside, sometimes they simply emerge from underneath the old paint peeling off the walls...
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So upset in fact that they call it"fencing in broad daylight" & "slap in the face",tagging on Twitter both the 🇵🇱Ministry of Culture and the Spokesman of the M.of Foreign Affairs,the latter of which responded with "we are aware" of the case that is heating up the 🇵🇱internet.
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If cemeteries create a community of both the living and the dead, what happens when the living get displaced?
Case in point: German cemeteries in the PL "Recovered Lands."
All Saints' Day is a good day to reflect on what happens to memory in the absence of those who remember.
🧵
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