November 2024 | Part I: Interview with Ewa Dobiala, Polish Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist

Almost all of these small cities just before the war were Jewish shtetls. We, the descendants of the inhabitants of small pre-World War II Polish towns, very often don’t know who we really are. The understanding is much more complex. Our transcultural reality was Jewish, Polish, and German. Most of us have no idea whose grandkids we are, and we don’t have the awareness and sensitivity to recognize that.

I was born in Koszalin, a town in northwest Poland. Before WW II, it was German. [Poland was partitioned three times between 1772 and the end of WW I by Russia, Prussia, and Austria.] It was almost totally destroyed by Russia during the war. My parents are from Poland. My mother’s city is close to Warsaw and my father’s is close to the Ukrainian border.

My family is strongly connected to my mother’s city, Żuromin, where I was baptized. I spent a few months every year there although we lived in Koszalin. 

I recognize this pattern in my family that there were many things hidden because of the danger. At the same time, there was a need to talk about it. It put me in conflict as a child because I remember some kinds of words from my grandfather but I was never sure what they meant! My grandfather’s grandparents (mid-19^th c.) told him, “Remember who you are. Never forget who you are.” They probably came to Żuromin after the uprising in 1863 because Russian reprisals took land titles away from all landowners.

To understand the history of 19th-century Poland, one needs to realize that the idea of “nations” was very different. On the territories of Poland under partition, there were people from many nations: Polish, Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian, and German for instance. People who regarded themselves as Polish were the wealthy landowners (landed gentry and nobility) and the intelligentsia. The people in the countryside, in most cases, did not yet have a strong national identity. Poland didn’t exist on the map.  Both uprisings (in 1830 and 1863) were mainly led by the Polish nobility and intelligentsia. But during the January Uprising (in 1863), it was the first time that Poles fought alongside Jewish people for Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising was lost and many families were sent to Siberia.

There were other things my grandfather shared but it wasn’t so easy under communism to be open. One had to protect the family.

Żuromin was a Jewish shtetl of over 50% Jews. I have no idea why my family lived in the Jewish Quarter. I have no idea who they really were. It shows how many dimensions in these small cities had to be hidden.

My DNA shows that I’m half Polish with some German and Jewish parts from my mother and father, and there are no stories about our Jewish background. And I can’t find Jewish names in my ancestors. During my childhood, there was no discussion about it. I didn’t know that 40 years before I was born more than half the city was Jewish. I knew nothing. The Jewish cemetery and synagogue were destroyed by the Germans along with all Jewish houses in 1939. No signs, nothing. We live in a city of total SILENCE.

I was walking down the street, which had been Jewish, although I didn’t know it. I was feeling a tension very strongly in the city. As a child, I had a passion, almost a fixation, on some war poems that I learned. I knew a lot of them. My grandmother died when I was two years old. My grandfather had remarried. My new grandmother took me to old people in the city to share the poems. I was around 6,7, and 8. They would give me some cake and again SILENCE. I could feel their emotions but couldn’t understand why. 

Now, I can differentiate a little between Polish and Jewish culture. I recognize that there are still some remnants of Jewish traditions in the city, practiced by the people but never called Jewish. These include certain dishes, shared songs, and often styles of prayer and approaches to faith. Additionally, many old houses had small wooden structures or verandas built beside them. No one remembers anymore what these Sukkot were originally used for. In our garden, there was also such a building, which my relatives called a szajer (from the German word Scheuer which means barn, granary). My grandfather kept his most important belongings there, ones he didn’t want his family to know about. Occasionally, he would meet there with an older man. It was there that I found my first book about Auschwitz. In another small szajer, he hid a photo of his mother, who was murdered by the Germans in 1940. We rediscovered this portrait in the 2000s.

I discovered the history of the Jewish city when the war with Ukraine started. As a child, I met some anger in my family because I looked a little Jewish. They would make jokes about it. Two years ago, because of the war and my professional position, I organized a large conference to support Ukrainian therapists. More than 400 Ukrainian therapists took part. I received a message from New York, an American therapist and trainer, that she could support me in this work. Of course, I agreed and felt very grateful. When we talked, she shared that she had Polish roots. Her ancestors were from the same city. We discovered we had the same uncle. He was the descendant of the brother of my great-grandmother, who was murdered. The New York therapist was Jewish. I was born in 1979. I only found this out in 2022.

I found accounts about the Jewish part of the city in Tel Aviv, Israel, and I found a group of people in New York from my mother’s city. I started to talk to my family. It was very difficult to open this subject. They were really afraid.

In 1939, the Russians attacked from the East and the Germans from the northwest. Jewish people were expelled from the city by the Germans. My grandfather’s father was fighting against the Russians, so he wasn’t at home. My family was not expelled at this time. My great-grandmother reacted very emotionally to all the German cruelty. She was murdered two months later along with the psychiatric patients. The city psychiatrist was a friend of the family. She went for help and so she was on his list of patients. They were taken to the forest and shot. 

I’ve read in Jewish books how Polish people were happy that the Jews were taken. I’ve never heard this kind of story at my home. But for sure there were all kinds of reactions.

In the 1980s, when I was 6 or 7, I went to the forest with my grandfather. He found the site where my great-grandmother was shot with the others and wanted to have them exhumed and buried in the cemetery. Only my great-grandmother’s name is there because no one else would say if their relatives were among those shot.

In January 1940, my great-grandfather came home from Russia where he’d been fighting. The story was that he came to protect his family but was too late to save his wife. Two months later, the Polish intelligentsia and some Jewish people, including my great-grnadfather, were taken to Dzialdowo Camp. 
 
The Germans planned to first kill the Polish intelligentsia and the priests there, and then the Jews. About Dzialdowo, we know almost nothing. The Germans hid everything. In the beginning, the plan was just to murder. They smashed all the bones to hide the evidence. I don’t know why my great-grandfather and grandfather were taken to this camp. No history could be safely shared.
 
Some money was paid to the camp to save them. Later, my grandfather was sent to Auschwitz, and he escaped from the train. He spent a few years in the forest with his father and the partisans. Their house was probably used by German soldiers. The story was only given in little bits which were very unclear. I have memories that he spoke of his Jewish neighbors who saved his life at the beginning of the war, and later they were on the same train to Auschwitz, helping him to survive. In his small hometown, many Poles and Jews lived simply together. They spoke Polish, had one common school, and the synagogue stood next to the Catholic church. I have no idea what that world looked like exactly.
 
From small anecdotes, it seems my great-grandfather and grandfather spent the rest of the war in a village near Krakow protected by a Polish family. This family’s great-grandfather was also an officer in the Polish army and so they created a partisan force fighting in the forest. My grandfather was 16 or 17 years old. He married the girl from this house. They would travel to Krakow to give food to the ghetto.

Almost all of these small cities just before the war were Jewish shtetls. We really don’t know who we are. The understanding is much more complex. The transcultural reality was Jewish, Polish, and German. Most of us have no idea whose grandkids we are, and we don’t have the awareness and sensitivity to recognize that. It’s very difficult to differentiate what part of our Polish culture is Polish or Jewish. We lived together for a thousand years. Nobody wants to think about it in this way because it seems too hard and too difficult because of the pain, shame, and fear. Sometimes, it seems easier not to remember. But if there’s something in the unconscious, this huge energy, it has to open! The next generation is much more sensitive to the untold pain and shame. 

This is the story of Żuromin: in the last 20 years, about 200 young people have passed away, fentanyl addicts in a city of 8,000 people. Nobody talked about it in the city. It was all in total SILENCE. They did not discuss it or write about it. It’s the same as the story of the murder of Jewish people, people with mental/emotional problems, and the intelligentsia—all covered over by an absolute TABOO dynamic.

A journalist, originally from Żuromin, was the first to discover the problem and ask for help. He invited TV and radio reporters. I met with him and we decided to make a first consultation with the city. I invited seven therapists from Poland, Germany, France, Ukraine, and the States. Eva Fogelman was among them. Eva, who is also a filmmaker, is among the pioneers of transgenerational trauma and spoke about it in Israel during the 1970s and 1980s. We met with a few Żuromin residents chosen by the journalist from different generations and different strata along with representatives from the City Council. It was amazing! It lasted four hours, and they all repeated the same story. “In our city, we cannot talk about the difficult things. In our city, young people have no future. If you’re well-educated, you’re in danger.” Almost all of them did not know the story of their city. They had no knowledge that people with mental/emotional problems had been killed; no knowledge of the intelligentsia being murdered; and no knowledge, at the conscious level, of the Jewish deaths. They feel shame and pain, but it’s not connected to anything. They believe that if you say something, even if your kid is dying, you can’t talk about it because it’s dangerous!

I’m in contact with the journalist. It’s still taboo. It’s going to take time. I will take my chapter on transgenerational trauma, from a book I’m writing, to the city council when it’s published in 2025. For them, the idea of transgenerational trauma is a fairy tale. They don’t understand it and don’t believe it could be so.

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Election

This dawn the good lord is painting
Michelangelo’s clouds in 3-D,
smoky-white on blue with
roseate strips across the East.

A waning moon, a little higher
than the two ravens heading fast
to the West who flew in for their
color contrast, scuds behind veils.

Birds rise in song and early
morning wheels zip along
the highway. In a corner of the canvas
I’m drawn snipping the last
runner bean bush leaving
its roots in the ground while smelling
the earth. Here, I elect to be.

Raphael Block

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Facing the World with Soul and Why it Matters

15th November with Francis Weller

Francis Weller is an American psychotherapist, writer, and Soul activist. He is the founder of Wisdom Bridge, an educational project that synthesizes psychology, anthropology, and mythology. He has taught at Sonoma State University, the Sophia Center, and the Minnesota Men’s Conference. He is the author of several books: -the Wild Edge of Sorrow; A Threshold Between Loss and Revelation; in the Absence of the Ordinary: Essays in a Time of Uncertainty; and A Trail on the Ground: a Geography of Soul.

Join us on 15th November 15th, 2024, for a live online event at 5-6.30 pm UK/ 9 – 10.30 PT/ 6 – 7.30 CET. 

To sign up, please follow this link:  Register Now

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Emergence Magazine features an interview with renowned poet Jane Hirshfield

On Time, Mystery, and Kinship

The transcript and conversation with Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee can be found at this link.

Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation Workshops

For those of us who live in Sonoma County, please take a look at the Laguna’s offerings, workdays, and volunteering opportunities, or even consider joining their Board!

Join this fun class and learn a new skill! We will first practice processing dogbane sticks to extract the fiber and make sample cordage. Then we will learn the knotless netting technique and begin a small bag using hemp string supplied by the instructor. Charlie Kennard of San Anselmo is a long-time basket weaver and student of California Indian and other Traditional Basketry techniques.

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Dear friends,

I’ll be doing something new in the poetry evening at Russian River Books & Letters on Sunday, November 17th from 6:00 to 7:30 pm and would very much appreciate your presence if you can be there.

Warmly,
   Raphael

MIDDLE EAST PEACE

Last month’s issue closed with a quote from Jamil of Combatants for Peace:

“Nothing in nature lives for itself. Rivers do not drink their own water; trees do not eat their own fruit; the sun doesn’t shine on itself.” Let us strive to live for one another, as nature does. By learning from this example, we can foster kindness and mutual support. Please continue to support our efforts as we work to bring about change and inspire hope for a better future.

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All feedback welcome! Please share your photos, paintings, poems, dreams, musings — whatever your passion in relation to this wonderful Earth!

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Many thanks to Diana Badger for her careful editing and invaluable suggestions!