—

On May 18, 1899, my great-great-grandparents, Michelina Mickelsky and Martinus Rusiecki, arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from Warsaw, Poland, via Antwerp, Belgium. They settled in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, to work in the coal mines. In 1911, Michelina gave birth to my great-grandmother, Frances. In 1939, she gave birth to my grandfather, John. In 1963, his wife, Judith, gave birth to my mother, Laura. We are Polish through and through– after all, my mother is only three generations off the boat.

On my mother’s side of the family, our Polish heritage is strong. It is evident in the Catholicism she practices, in the way bits of Polish slip into her speech, but most visibly, in our food.

Regardless of the time of year, a rainy day means pierogies. Kielbasa is our preference, over hot dogs. Horseradish is ever-present on our refrigerator door, despite no one actually enjoying it.  

The home-made cookbooks that my mother received from my great-grandmother fill glass cabinets above the marble countertops. Inside these aging, hand-bound books, are yellowed recipe cards. Sometimes, the words change from English to Polish mid-sentence, as if whoever wrote them couldn’t find the word outside of her mother tongue. Sometimes, the words are indiscernible altogether. On some cards, there are red-purple stains that look (and smell) suspiciously like horseradish, despite no one actually enjoying it.

I never understood how unchanged and genuinely Polish my food was, until I traveled to Poland, and experienced it for myself.

—

Just like I hadn’t been to Europe before, I have never traveled in a group. Nor have I traveled with people my age. We clash almost instantly. I’m here to find my heritage. They’re here to vacation. It’s evident in our approaches to food.

My peers look curiously at our hotel breakfast. They don’t seem to understand why, exactly, there are four different kinds of sausages on offer. I, on the other hand, pile my plate high with Kielbasa, and I exclaim in delight when the first taste of savory, spicy pork hits my tongue.

My peers are anxious to eat the pierogis at lunch, at a crowded, overfilled restaurant tucked behind a bustling, cobblestone Warsaw street. The dumplings are stuffed full and overflowing with mushrooms, onions, potatoes, and meat, and cooked to perfection, their edges just slightly browned. As I bite into them, all I taste is the familiar; a home cooked meal on a Thursday night, my mother wearing an apron that proclaims OUR LADY OF ANGELS CATHOLIC CHURCH, listening to NPR and poking impatiently at pierogies in a sizzling, spitting skillet.

My peers decide to eat American food for dinner. Instead, I am on the hunt for the Polish street food I remember from Church bazaars, the smell of grilled onions and smoked meat filling the air as I jumped on the bouncy houses with my friends from school. I find a stand that sells Kielbasa on white bread smothered in sweet, juicy onions, and slathered in brown mustard.

My peers get ice cream for dessert, but I’m on the hunt for Paçzki, massive, fruit-filled doughnuts that my mother gets for us every Fat Tuesday. The confection is covered in powdered sugar, and I have to hold it with two hands, like a real American cheeseburger.  

You’ll get sick off of that stuff, my peers say, turning up their nose as I lick sweet fruit off my sugar-covered fingers, or I stuff some escaped onions back into my makeshift sandwich, or push potato back into the pierogi, or add another sausage to my breakfast plate. The food is too heavy; it’s too rich.

I won’t get sick. Like a world-class athlete, I have been training to eat this food my entire life.

—

Just like my Polish heritage is influenced by my father’s Judaism, Polish cuisine is also heavily influenced by the centuries-old Ashkenazi Jewish population of Poland.

Before World War II, Poland had the largest population of Jews in Europe, and the second-largest population in the world, outside of New York City. I am surprised by how seamlessly the two cultures blend; from the latkes served with my pierogies, to the Matzo ball soup served as an appetizer for my kielbasa dinner. The simultaneous Ashkenazi and Polish diet of cabbage and onions and potatoes intertwine, coming together like the Ashkenazi and Polish double helix that is my genetic code.

Even the bagel, the most ubiquitously Jewish food, was invented on the streets of Krakow. On a rainy morning in the Cloth Hall of Krakow, I eat the very first bagel. It tastes like every bagel I’ve eaten before– and I’ve eaten a lot. I’m a New York Jew, after all.  

This cloth hall and this bagel have been around since the 13th century. Maybe my ancestor once pulled a wooden cart across these uneven cobblestone streets. Everything in Poland seems like a memory of a past life, of places I’ve visited but never have seen.

—

In Auschwitz, I have apple cake with lunch. Apple cake, to me, is a rarity outside of Christmas dinner. The cake-pie hybrid is crisp and refreshing and tastes infinitely better than the water-without-gas I’ve been drinking. I’m dehydrated from all the tears I have cried.

As we return to our tour, we leave a barrack and enter a courtyard that was used as shooting grounds for thousands of helpless prisoners. In the middle of the gravel, bullet-riddled, brick-surrounded square, I see my mother’s second cousin, Pam.

Speechlessly, I walk over to her. We both have earphones in, listening to our separate tours. I wave. She looks shocked, before hugging me. My professor, Dr. Kennedy, looks concerned, before I say, excitedly, that this is my cousin.

I knew they were in Poland at the same time as me, but I never imagined to see them 4,945 miles from home. They live in North Carolina. I live in Georgia. We’ve only met once, when I was six, at my great-grandmother’s funeral, in Pennsylvania.

Yet here we are, in a death camp, in Poland.

—

When I return to Krakow, I meet my mother’s second cousins in the Old Square for dinner. We find a restaurant, and order soup prior to our meals. It’s like I’m at a family reunion. Pam and her husband, Robert, ask me about my trip, about college, about my plans for the future. They ask me what I thought about Auschwitz. They’re curious as to how I felt– they know my dad is Jewish. They heard my grandfather passed away last fall– how is my mom doing?

We’re served chicken noodle soup. It’s identical to my mother’s, down to the spices and long, spaghetti-like noodles.

My mother’s second cousin and I lift our spoons to our mouths and moan in delight. “Wow,” She says, smiling at me. We have the same chin, the Danielowicz chin. “This soup tastes just like my mom’s.” It doesn’t just taste like her mom’s soup, or my mom’s soup, or our Great-Grandmother’s soup. It tastes like Poland. It tastes like home.

Lilacs adorned the backyard of my home in New York. Every year, when they would blossom, my father would cut off the branches, and place them in our rooms. They said, “Spring is here! Passover, Easter, they’re here!”

This past May, I went on a life-changing trip to Poland with the Agnes Scott History department and the Center for Global Learning. The third day there, as we were walking around Warsaw, I began to feel homesick. I missed my family and being fourth-generation Polish, I was at once homesick and home. It reminded me of my great-grandmother, it reminded me of my home in New York, it reminded me of everything and nothing all at once.

Then, I saw Lilacs.

For the rest of the trip, I saw Lilacs everywhere. It was like a sign, saying, “You are home.” And I knew that flower would always be special for me.

Zoe Katz is a Junior at Agnes Scott College, majoring in History and Business Management. Originally from Binghamton, New York, Zoe moved to Athens, Georgia, when she was 11 years old.  Her academic interests include Marketing, New Media Studies, and Religious Renaissance movements. Her personal interests include hockey, where she roots for the Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL) and the New York Riveters (NWHL), Barberitos burritos, Jittery Joe’s coffee, and Harry Potter. She is a proud Hufflepuff. When she grows up, she wants to be the Director of Marketing for the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

On Mother’s Day, I boarded a Delta Airbus at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and flew across the Atlantic for the very first time.

It was around 4 in the afternoon when I left, and 8 am when I arrived the next morning in Charles de Gaulle. It was my first time entering a time zone more than one hour ahead or behind Eastern Standard Time, and I was disoriented and exhausted, even though I slept fairly well on the plane.

Still, it was my first time in Europe, and even though I was only in France for a two-hour layover, I was eager to spend my time wisely. I practiced my French, ordered a massive cafe latte and a pain au chocolat.  Then, our group, about 20 in total, boarded an AirFrance flight to Warsaw. I spent the flight looking out over the countryside of Europe, staring at the beautiful, rolling fields. I was surprised by how much Europe looked like a flight over North Carolina or Georgia. 

Then, I fell asleep.

When I arrived, I was in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. The first thought I had was: wow, Polish makes no sense phonetically or grammatically. Then, I thought– holy cow, I’m in Poland. I had this thought frequently throughout the trip.

We didn’t go through customs as we were leaving the airport, which annoyed me because, now, I don’t have a stamp from Poland in my Passport.

We arrived at our hotel, the Campanile Warsaw, which was only a short tram ride away from the heart of downtown Warsaw. I washed up, and then promptly fell asleep again. Apparently, I am not good with Jetlag. This would have been nice to know before I traveled to Europe. After napping, our group went to dinner at a local restaurant.

After napping, our group went to dinner at a local restaurant. I am nearly 100% Polish. I was not aware of how apparent my Polish heritage was in my life until I sat down for dinner that first evening in Warsaw. For our appetizer, we were served a simple Chicken Noodle Soup. I took one sip and was blown away by the familiar taste on my tongue. This soup was identical to the Chicken Noodle Soup my mother makes for me when I’m sick– the same spices, the same broth, the same noodles. I felt at home and homesick at the same time.

I don’t remember much about that first dinner, except for watching Polish folk dancing and listening to Polish folk music. I was overwhelmed with how much I was reminded of my family’s traditions, especially my late grandfather, who passed away this past October. He taught me how to Polka. That night, I had tears in my eyes, thinking of him. His mother immigrated from Poland, and he never had the chance to go back.

Later that evening, I set out with two other girls in my group to find Sim cards, and we ended up at the massive Galeria Mokotów. This mall is a massive four story shopping center full of luxury brands like Lacoste, United Colors of Benetton, Adidas, Chanel, and more. I was in awe, as I had never been in a mall that nice, not even the Lennox mall in Buckhead.

I was in awe of the beauty of Warsaw. It reminded me of Pittsburgh or another industrial city that’s been given new life by its passionate citizens. Warsaw has risen from the ashes, literally, but that’s a story for another day.