Are you kidding? I will probably never be done with telling you about Poland. This is still just the beginning.
Okay, so where were we? Quite literally — where?
Another beautiful rural road in Poland, that’s where. We had just been in Rosengarten (Rozgart) and were now making our way to what had once been built as a Mennonite church. We passed some farms, and then between them, arrived at this!
Thiensdorf Mennonite Church. I don’t know if you can tell, but it is abandoned. And yet… cared for. The grass had been tall, but seemed to have been freshly mowed just prior to our arrival. The scent of cut greens followed us as we set out to explore.
See the detail on the windows? We felt the cut gras was leading somewhere. Likely a cemetery. We had to see.
When I reached the cemetery’s edge, I turned to look back at the church, and caught my breath at the view. This was stepping back in time. This was seeing what was left after all these years.
The story of this building is told in the papers Andrew had us following:
Mennonites were in this region since the late 16th century. The Mennonites here were Frisian. This is all that is left here, from this group: a Neogothic place of worship built in 1899. An organ was installed inside. As you can see, the church survived the Second World War, after which this building was used by Catholics. But in time “the church lost its sacral function. The condition of its interior continues to deteriorate, and its furnishings were looted. In the times of the Polish People’s Republic, the former church served State Agricultural Farms as a shop and warehouse. Today the building stands empty.”
(I think this information is from this website.)
I believe that writeup is a little bit old, actually — but seems to remain true. I wonder who takes care of cutting the grass, and looking after the cemetery.
Isn’t it weird that I haven’t showed you one picture of the cemetery? I reached the graveyard and turned around and could not take my eyes off this ghostly church building.
Realizing that we had about 2 minutes to explore, I forced myself to turn around and look at headstones. Here is what I saw.
Here is a picture that he took: the Bartel family rests here.
Once again, that church though:
I wish I could tell you what feelings or emotions this sight (and site) caused to well up in me. I think I expected to connect more deeply with it all than I did. And yet, didn’t I need a moment to sit with it all? And I did not have that. Yet at the same time, we had so much ground to cover, and our trip was so short.
You know, I considered making this the feature photo:
(Did I choose wisely?)
And then at that, we were rushed back into the vehicle to continue our adventure.
You can read the academic, properly-cited writeup about the history of this congregation on GAMEO. (In fact, I hope you do. It is much different from what I have to say, haha.)