In early 2020, we made plans to visit Ukraine with Andrew’s parents, including the village (Ruckenau) where Andrew’s grandfather was born. We had everything figured out. We chatted with potential guides. We even bought plane tickets. Then we all know what happened in 2020 and, sadly, what is going on in Ukraine right now, that makes trips like this impossible.
So, still wanting to travel with Andrew’s parents and still interested in exploring our family history, we decided to take a trip to Poland. Here’s the thing – our ancestors, and possibly yours too, were in Poland longer than they were anywhere else. We don’t know how long they were in Friesland and Flanders, of course, as records don’t really go back that far, but we do know that the ancestors of most of southern Manitoba’s Mennonites lived in Poland for at least 200 years, possibly 250. Including those who never left for the Russian Empire, in total Mennonites were in Poland/Prussia for 400 years. It was in Poland/Prussia where we began speaking Low German and where our cuisine and culture was established. In contrast, some lived in the Russian Empire for less than one lifetime. And, yet, for some reason, we call ourselves “Russian Mennonites.” But that’s a can of worms I won’t get into right now.
So, if you haven’t considered a Mennonite-themed or family history trip to Poland, I highly recommend it. I’ve already blogged about some of our adventures there, but have many more articles to write. For now, though, I thought I’d let Andrew explain how to plan a Mennonite trip to Poland. He did much of the planning for our July 2024 trip.
The first thing I would recommend is asking yourself whether you want to go independently, on a group tour, or hire a guide. The Mennonite sites in northern Poland are plentiful, but they require planning to access. Poland is well suited for tourism with all the infrastructure one might expect in Europe, but Mennonite tourism is not a big-ticket item as of yet, so you won’t see last-minute bus tours of all the villages. You will have to plan ahead.
There are guided tours from North America fairly regularly (once or twice a year) such as the ones offered by Tourmagination and Bethel College. The advantage of this type of tour is that you can meet like-minded people, you don’t have to do any planning, and you have access to expert guides to explain everything that you are seeing. The disadvantages might be that you can’t necessarily see every single village to which you have a family connection. Some people also prefer independent travel. Or, as in our case, the guided tours might not match your own availability. There is also the possibility to hire your own private guide. (I can’t tell you which guide to use, as we didn’t hire one, but if you Google “Gdansk Mennonite guide”, you can find several. You can also ask about guides in the area on the Mennonite Genealogy and History Facebook page).
We opted to travel independently and also do all the planning ourselves without a guide. This is the most labour-intensive option, but very rewarding and if you’re the sort of person who likes planning, it’s definitely a good option. I’m here to say: yes, you can travel to Poland all on your own and, yes, you can find the villages of your ancestors. If you’ve planned your own trip to Europe in the past, there’s no reason you can’t also plan your own Mennonite history trip to Poland.
You will, however, need to prepare well in advance. Here’s what I recommend:
- Read. If you’re going to do this on your own, you should have a basic knowledge of your own family history and Mennonite history in general. There are many books, scholarly articles, and websites on this topic. You might also know other people who have taken a similar trip. Ask them for advice. In preparation for the trip, I also asked questions on the Mennonite Genealogy and History Facebook page.
- Have proper expectations. I don’t know what you’re expecting of a Mennonite tour to Poland. I’ve heard people say, “there’s nothing left of Mennonites out there,” which isn’t true. At the same time, if your ancestors left this area 200-250 years ago, DO NOT expect to find headstones of your direct ancestors. Using Findagrave, I was able to find two headstones of people that I could prove I was related to but, otherwise, while you’ll find plenty of familiar surnames, proving a relationship to them is unlikely. Do expect to visit villages where your ancestors lived, but don’t expect the buildings to be from the era when they lived there. (There are some exceptions). Over all, there’s actually a lot of Mennonite history remaining in Poland and, in some ways, there’s more to see than in southern Manitoba, but do keep in mind that your ancestors likely lived there a very long time ago and that through war and decades of Communism, much has also been lost.
- Compile a list of all your known ancestors who lived in Poland/Prussia. This can be accessed on Grandma Online. Look at their birth locations and death locations. Then, with that information, make a list of the most common village names. Maybe you have just one ancestor with a connection to a certain village, but a dozen or more with a connection to another.
- Use gameo.org to find the current name of these villages. Grandma Online will provide you with German names. If you want to find these villages now, you’ll need the current Polish name.
- With this information, figure out the villages you want to visit. We prioritized villages with many ancestors, as well as villages of our oldest/earliest known ancestors in a line and also the villages from where they left for Ukraine. All of this can be discovered on Grandma Online.
- Add locations and sites that are important to Mennonite history in general. There are churches, graveyards, houses, and other sites that may not be connected to your family directly, but are important to the Mennonite story in general. There are quite a few arcaded houses to see and many housebarns, a building tradition that Mennonites carried with them all the way to Canada. There is also the Olenderski museum near Torun, the museum in Nowy Dwor Gdanski, and the Maly Holender restaurant north of Nowy Dwor Gdanski. You will probably also want to visit the Malbork Castle and the Stuffhof Concentration Camp. There are many more spots in the area, which Erin will be blogging about.
- Another thing I did was to go the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach. In the indoor permanent exhibit, I looked for any references to Poland/Prussia and added any locations that were mentioned to our itinerary.
- Once I had a list of locations, I charted them using Google Maps. I pinned each location and then figured out a good route. Do not go to Poland with just a list of village names (or worse yet, just a list of ancestor’s names), not unless you have several weeks to explore. You need to figure out a route ahead of time if you’re trying to do this in a time-efficient manner. Oh, did I mention, if you do this on your own, you’re going to have to rent a car and drive?
- On driving in Poland – in general Poland is flat, easy to drive in, with very nice roads. The highways are far smoother than anything in Manitoba, so you’ll have no issues there. You do need to be a confident driver, especially in cities, as drivers can be aggressive and you’ll encounter many roundabouts. But assuming you can handle this, driving in Poland is, in many ways, better than Canada. Renting a car is as easy and affordable as any other location. While gas is more expensive than in Canada, many other things (such as hotels) are much cheaper in Poland than in Canada. You will need to get an International Drivers licence to drive in Poland, but this can be easily and affordably purchased from CAA in Canada or AAA in the US.
- Once I had my route figured out, I printed off the entire thing, including step-by-step directions, before we left. As it turned out, we had good access to GPS in rural Poland and I didn’t need to use the printed map very often, but it’s a good idea to have it, just in case. Get an eSim card and you can get cheap access to the Internet while in Poland. This enabled us to navigate, even in very small, way-off-the-beaten-path villages. It was shocking how good the Internet access was.
- I also created a second document (it was about 15-20 pages long), which contained historic information for every location. It was well organized so that it followed the same route we were taking. For each village, cemetery, or historic site, I added a couple paragraphs of information that I had found online in the websites listed below. We then read this information when we arrived at each site. I also added, at each location, a list of our ancestors who had a connection to this particular village. Altogether, it was a bit like having our own guide. Surprisingly, many of the cemeteries did, in fact, have historic signs, but it was often only in Polish, so having our own information was helpful.
- Give yourself more time. While Google Maps can give you an estimate for how long it takes to get from one place to another, I did find that our routes took a bit longer than expected. I suppose it all depends how thorough you want to be and how many villages you want to visit, but give yourself at least 3-4 days to visit Mennonite villages. They are close to each other – it’s basically all within a one-hour radius – but there are many many villages and you’re primarily travelling on narrow rural roads. It’s going to take you a while.
- Because we wanted to see some non-Mennonite spots in Poland as well, we picked up our car in Krakow, stopped in Wroclaw and Poznan, before beginning the Mennonite part of our trip in Torun. Many people will probably begin and end their Menno tour in Gdansk. The triangle between Torun, Elblag, and Gdansk is where you will probably spend most of your time. For the Menno village tours, we situated ourselves in Nowy Dwor Gdanski (formerly Tiegenhof), where we stayed at the Willa Joker hotel. You could easily do this trip based out of Gdansk, Elblag, or even Malbork. The advantage of Nowy Dwor Gdanski was that it’s centrally located and is a small town so there were no issues with traffic or parking. It is literally 5 minutes away from where some of our ancestors lived. After we dropped off the car, we also spent a couple nights in Gdansk, which I highly recommend. It has a significant Mennonite history, but is a fantastic city to visit even without that connection.
- Some helpful websites for your research:
- GAMEO (Mennonite encyclopedia, with current names and basic (though out-of-date) information on many of the Polish/Prussian Mennonite villages).
- Find a Grave (More up-to-date than Gameo, though not completely current, Find a Grave DOES list many of the small Mennonite cemeteries, including a list of burials)
- Mennonite in Poland, Common Heritage (A self-guided tour to the main Mennonite sites in Poland, including descriptions of each one).
- Mennonite Trail (Information on the Mennonite Trail with photographs)
- Grandma Online (I assume, if you’re doing this trip, you already know about this Mennonite Genealogy site. It’s essential if you’re going to plan this trip on your own. Inexpensive membership required to login).
- Mennonici w Polsce (Polish site with basic Mennonite history)
- The Mennonites (Polish site with information on the Mennonite Trail in Zulawy)
- Trails of the Past (includes maps of Mennonite villages in Poland)
- Google Maps (This might seen obvious, but it was helpful in planning our route. All of the villages and even many of the small cemeteries are marked on Google Maps. Using Google street view was also helpful to get a sense of what to expect and to know what we’re looking for so we didn’t drive past and miss it.)
- So, should you do a Menno trip to Poland? Absolutely yes!