A Visit to Piltz
Jewish community before 1989 – Accounts, memories
Polska / śląskie
A Visit to Piltz
by Sonia Pressman Fuentes
In the 1970s, after my father's death, when I told my mother that I planned to go to Poland someday, she said, "What for?" Both she and my father had been born in Poland in a shtetl [village] called Piltz, but to my mother Poland meant poverty and anti-Semitism.
My mother died in 1975, but the urge to visit Poland stayed with me. This pull to return to my roots was, of course, not unique to me. Many, if not most, people share it. Frank Viviano, the author of Blood Washes Blood, A True Story of Love, Murder, and Redemption Under the Sicilian Sun, wrote as follows about his trip to the Sicilian town of Terrasini, where his family had lived for generations:
"I can't really explain why I've come here, to a village where I know no one and have no past of my own."
It was a drive to complete my life, to go back to where it all began, for my parents and therefore also for me.
But I was torn by the decision. I knew of Poland's anti-Semitism, in the past and today. Poland was also currently anti-feminist. Why should I, a Jew and a feminist, go to a country with a long history of anti-Semitism and a current backlash against women's rights?
On the other hand, Ellen Friedland, the co-producer of a PBS documentary about a Polish synagogue, wrote me that Poland was "magical" and encouraged me to go.
Conflicted as I was, I made plans to go to Poland on August 11, 2001, on a two-week Elderhostel Jewish Heritage trip, and arranged for a side trip to Piltz. I wanted to see and step foot in the shtetl where both my parents had been born and married and where my grandparents had lived. Furthermore, the first chapter of my memoir (Eat First--You Don't Know What They'll Give You: The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter) takes place in Piltz. I based it on what I remembered of my parents' stories but I wanted to see how close my recollection was to the truth.
But I didn't know where Piltz was. My research revealed that there appeared to be two towns named Piltz--one in Kielce province and the other in Katowice province. Furthermore, while Piltz was the name my parents used, the Polish names were different. It was generally referred to as Pilica, but was also called Pilitsa and Pilitz. In addition, there was another town called Pilzno. I could not tell which town was my parents' shtetl.
I decided to visit the Piltz that was northeast of Bedzin (Bendin in Yiddish), Katowice, and Sosnowiec since I'd often heard my father mention those towns. I learned a good bit about the history of this Piltz and its Jews. The name of the settlement was already noted as Piliciam in the year 1228. In 1897, its population was 3,950, about 68 percent of whom were Jewish. Before the war in 1939, its Jewish population numbered about 2,500.
In Kiddish Hashem: Jewish Religious and Cultural Life in Poland During the Holocaust, by Shimon Huberband, Jeffrey S. Gurock and Robert S. Hirt, the authors state that Piltz was an "ancient Jewish community" with a Jewish cemetery dating back several hundred years and a very old and "exquisitely built" synagogue. Renowned Talmudists served as its rabbis. A note stated: "During the first expulsion [of Jews] of January 5, 1940, the Nazis killed, shot, confiscated Jewish possessions, etc. During the second half of 1942 the community was totally liquidated. The few remaining Jews were sent to the Maidanek death camp."
In addition to visiting Piltz, I decided to see if I could find any record of my parents. But I expected that my entire search would be fruitless: I wasn't sure the Piltz I was going to was in fact my parents' shtetl, I knew my mother's maiden name was Dombek [little oak] but I didn't know its Polish spelling, and I wasn't certain of the spelling of the names of any of my grandparents. I had not a single address or personal contact.
On August 12, 2001, I arrived in Poland. There followed almost two weeks of memorable activities in Warsaw, Lodz, Lublin, Cracow, and other cities, including visits to the Warsaw and Cracow ghettos, the Jewish Historical Museum, the Nuzhik Synagogue in Warsaw, Oskar Schindler's factory in Cracow, and the death camps of Treblinka, Majdanek, and Plaszow.
On August 24, the tour group was going to Oswiecim to visit Auschwitz but that was the day I had arranged for my trip to Piltz. As I bid "Good-bye" to the members of the group that morning, they all said they were anxious to hear what I would find in Piltz. I nodded, certain that I would find nothing. I set off for Piltz with my driver, and Krystyna, my 70-ish Polish interpreter.
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