Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family

by Zalewski, Andrew

  Bronislawa was a remarkably modern woman who understood the emerging influence of the press and successfully argued for sharing news of the association with local and national newspapers, thus gaining wider support among the citizens of Galicia. She was convinced that lofty goals were not enough to attract donations for education. In meeting after meeting, she petitioned her colleagues with her own ideas: for instance, offering patrons of confectionary shops or restaurants an opportunity to add a few cents to their bills in return for small postcards with nicely printed views of Nowy Sacz. The proceeds of this imaginative campaign were, of course, to benefit the association.60

  Bronislawa Lösch (1848 – 1912). This picture was taken in Nowy Sacz in 1908.

  In later years, Bronislawa Lösch would become publicly recognized, not just for her ideas but also for her actions in addressing the educational needs of women. Among her many activities, she was a quiet but effective champion of teenage girls and those young women who were already working. Her idea was simple: to provide them with a place to congregate that was both educational and entertaining. To this end, she was instrumental in finding and arranging a spacious women’s reading room for a self-support group that formed in Nowy Sacz. Under Bronislawa, the place offered not only a wide range of newspapers and magazines, but also chances to attend lectures and seasonal concerts. She was clearly ahead of her time; at the opening of the reading room, the executive committee of the association unanimously approved a resolution thanking Bronislawa for her “extraordinary efforts.” We can only surmise that the late Andreas Lösch would have felt proud seeing his daughter so recognized for a good cause. With time, the reading room for women even turned a small profit, which was used to buy clothes for impoverished children.

  Toward the end of her life, Bronislawa would direct her energy through her organization in seeking support to build a teachers’ retreat. At the time of her last public appearance, her educational association was consumed by a debate over who would lead it into the future. One evening, the committee seemed to reach an impasse, with no easy solution in sight. The handwritten minutes of the meeting tell of her calming influence: “Then Miss Lösch rose, explaining that, as the oldest among those gathered, she would humbly venture a motion for the unanimous vote for...” offering the name of someone she felt was the best qualified. Her opinion seemed to matter; despite the bickering just minutes before, the candidate was quickly confirmed without a single dissenting vote.61

  To those who knew her and even to those of us who have read the meeting notes today, Bronislawa’s absence in subsequent gatherings clearly signaled trouble ahead. When she passed away the following year after a long illness, her obituaries were generous in praise of her life, not only as a distinguished teacher but also as a selfless person. To keep her legacy alive, fellow teachers and friends opened a local kindergarten that year, named after her.62

  Bronislawa Lösch’s obituary. Under the heading “From the grieving page,” the text reads, “Bronislawa Lösch, retired teacher from Nowy Sacz, died after a long illness 9th of [September] at age of 64. The deceased worked continuously in her profession for 35 years in Nowy Sacz, where she taught two generations [of students]. The funeral procession attended by many was the telling testimony of the feelings shared by local citizens for her tireless work in the educational and civic fields. Hail to the esteemed employee! Hail to our good colleague!”

  In contrast to Bronislawa, her sister Wilhelmina was often away from Nowy Sacz. She had been widowed very young but remarried in 1879, when she was in her late 20s. Her second husband was Vincent Telesnicki Jr., well-known to her entire family. Vincent Jr., employed by the railroad as a mechanical engineer, continued to move from one post to another, taking Wilhelmina and their young family to different places in western Galicia—not unlike the early lives of Andreas and Eleonora. However, these waystations were familiar to the couple and not too far from Nowy Sacz. The young family spent a few years each in several towns, including Tarnow, Stary Sacz, and Jaslo, some of which we have visited before.63 Ultimately, the couple would have two boys and two girls.

  Vincent Jr. and Wilhelmina remained close to Stephania and Joseph Regiec. As already mentioned, Vincent was the witness at their wedding, and Wilhelmina became a godparent to their first child, Helena. We can only wonder if Joseph Regiec and Vincent Telesnicki Jr. had something to do with each other’s fledgling careers in the railroad. But the young Telesnicki couple’s journey together came to a screeching halt the same year that Andreas passed away. In 1893, during a routine inspection of repairs on a steam engine, an explosion occurred. Vincent, who had the misfortune to be standing high up on the black locomotive, was thrown to the ground by the massive blast. The impact was deadly. In the second blow to the Lösch, Regiec, and Telesnicki families that year, Wilhemina’s husband died tragically at the age of 38, and she found herself a widow for the second time.

  Few early pictures of Helena Regiec survive from the time when she, as a young girl, lived with her family in Nowy Sacz. Photography was still at an early stage then, and taking a picture was a serious affair that required an appointment with the only studio in town, owned by Mr. Friedman. But that photograher’s luck at having no competition lasted only a few years. Soon, that gentleman would face the arrival of others who were skilled in the new art.64 In any case, one visit by the Regiec family to the Friedman atelier is documented; it must have been considered a splash of luxury, reserved for special occasions by those who could afford it. Not surprisingly, young Helena looks rather serious in her photo. Smiles were not considered appropriate, even if they had been possible to maintain—given the time that was required to stay still in front of the camera.65

  More dramatic events touched the extended family around that time. Around noon one Tuesday in April of 1894, fire broke out in Nowy Sacz on the roof of a bakery by the market square. Within minutes, a strong gust of wind had spread the flames from one structure to another (many were covered with wooden shingles). Soon, the post office and the telegraph station were consumed, which only delayed requests for help. Local firemen arriving on the scene were helpless, as there were only a few wells in the city center. To make matters worse, the horse-drawn fire trucks turned out to have empty barrels; the water had been used just a few days before when the streets were cleaned for an official visitor. The tragic irony was that, in a city squeezed between rivers, there was suddenly no easy way to put out a raging fire. Among those who deserved praise in the chaos of heat and choking fumes was a Mr. Winkler, referred to as the railway commissioner and possibly a Regiec family friend. As was later reported in several newspapers, he was one of the very few with a cool head. He quickly arranged help from his employees and, seeing the local firemen in disarray, began to direct them. We can only wonder today if Joseph Regiec was one among many men who rushed from the train station to the rescue.66

  Helena Regiec (1886–1977). This picture was taken in Nowy Sacz in Michael Friedman’s atelier in the early 1890s.

  Despite such efforts, almost all the buildings around the central square burned to the ground. Within hours, the old City Hall, with its priceless archives of the past 600 years, perished. As if this was not devastating enough, the fire had spread quickly to nearby churches, causing roofs to collapse and heavy bells to fall inside. Then, the Jewish district went up in flames. With sparks flying through the air, fires started to erupt as much as a few miles away from the city center. Flames even began to light up some straw-covered buildings in the village of Wielopole, where Joseph Regiec had tutored the children of his mentor years before. To the despair of one respected citizen from Nowy Sacz who had quickly evacuated his belongings to the safety of Wielopole, one of the stables he was using for temporary storage caught fire in the evening. The man’s possessions literally went up in smoke; it seemed that for some, there was no escape from the tragedy.

  In the end, hundreds of houses were destroyed in the fire, and up to 5,000 citizens were made homeless. Downtown N
owy Sacz smoldered for hours, with ghostly looking, blackened chimneys standing among the ruins. The central square was littered with broken furniture, pots and pans, papers, pillows, and whatever else the victims had been able to save from the fire.

  In spite of the misery surrounding them, the Lösch family probably considered themselves extremely lucky. Just a few years before, after Andreas’s retirement, they had moved to an area that was miraculously spared on that fateful day. Perhaps Eleonora and her daughter Bronislawa wondered what would have been their fate had they stayed in their former house just south of the central square. That building was now gone, and the area was surrounded by ruins.67

  The Regiecs were also safe. Joseph and his family lived toward the city outskirts in the south, in another of the few districts that were unaffected by the fire. Many others were less fortunate, and a number of empty lots were apparent in the downtown area even a few years after the disaster.

  In the fall of that eventful year, my grandmother began attending the elementary school on Jagiellonska Street. Helena Regiec was a good student; one can still find her name carefully calligraphed in a commemorative book, among honor students deserving special recognition in the fourth and fifth grades.68 Whether she was on the way to school or going to visit Eleonora, we can picture Helena walking through streets that still bore the scars of the fire’s destruction.

  Map of the downtown in Nowy Sacz. (Map from 1899.)

  Nowy Sacz. The elementary school attended by Helena Regiec in the 1890s. (Postcard from the end of the nineteenth century or early twentieth century.)

  Page from the book listing honor students from Nowy Sacz. The heading reads, “At the end of the school year 1899, the following pupils earned that their names be recorded in the honor book for exemplary behavior and hard work.” The entries below include fifth- grade student “Regiecówna, Halina [Helena].” Helena’s last name is written in an old Polish style where the ending “-ówna” denotes an unmarried woman.

  In the city center, houses were rebuilt quickly. A new City Hall, with its Parisian facade, would bring a sense of recovery and optimism for many; but for others, it became a focus of anger, its construction criticized as extravagant and poorly planned. Undoubtedly, this was the reality of local politics: It was impossible to satisfy everyone.

  For the young Regiec family, as it had been earlier for Andreas and Eleonora Lösch, life was not to become entirely settled yet. Joseph was advancing in his career, and with this came the choice of whether to remain in the familiar surroundings of Nowy Sacz or take advantage of new opportunities with some strings attached. The opening of a new Railway Directorate overseeing the growing network of railroads in the eastern part of the province created new positions for those who were not afraid of changes. Not surprisingly, Joseph was one of the first to sieze on this opportunity. By 1895, he had made the choice to accept a position on the railways at the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With this came a few job-related perks and steady pay; not a lot of money but still amounting to approximately half of what a city mayor would earn in those days. More importantly, the prospect of future advancement in the ranks of the expanding railroad administration was something not to be ignored.69 For the next few years, Joseph’s work in the regional railways took him to the Duchy of Bukovina, a province located further east and south in an area split today between Ukraine and Romania.

  Helena Regiec. This picture was taken on the occasion of Helena’s first communion in Nowy Sacz, in 1894.

  Although situated just beyond the historical boundaries of Galicia, the Duchy had been linked administratively off and on with the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria during Austrian rule. The name of the region was derived from beech trees that had apparently covered the territory in distant times. The population there differed greatly from that of western Galicia, where Joseph was from. In the south, Romanians were a majority, speaking a language much different from German or any Slavic language he knew. In the north, Ruthenians and their mountain-inhabiting cousins, the Hutsuls, were more prevalent. In population numbers, these groups were followed by Germans and much smaller groups of Jews, Poles, and Hungarians.

  Nowosielica (Austrian Nowosielitza). The border town’s train station, where Joseph Regiec worked from 1897 to 1899.

  The town of Nowosielica was Joseph’s first posting in Bukovina. This was one of those unusual places where, by chance or by the verdict of history, the borders of three nations (the Austro-Hungarian Empire, tsarist Russia, and Romania) came together, making it a busy trading center. As this was the last stop of the railway on Austrian soil before it continued further south to Romania, large customs fees were collected on goods moving in and out of the empire. Even the River Prut was put to work, with large logs flowing on its current toward trading posts. In this rugged territory, Joseph would stay alone for a few years; Stephania Regiec continued to care for not only her young daughters, Helena and Wanda, but also her ailing mother in Nowy Sacz, approximately 350 miles away from Joseph.

  The next stop in Joseph’s professional journey came soon; this time, the railroad took him to administrative tasks in Czerniowce, capital of the Duchy of Bukovina. Knowing that these fast-paced relocations were simply stepping stones to a more desirable position somewhere else, and/or considering Stephania’s likely wish to stay behind in Nowy Sacz, Joseph was not accompanied by his family there. How often his young daughters were able to see their father, we do not know for sure. From the stories my grandmother told, however, I know that Joseph was always on the move, inspecting various parts of the constantly expanding railway network and likely visiting home more often than other fathers who worked far away. The young sisters also went to see him, and Helena was able to travel with her father south to Romania. This was, however, only a small prelude to more exciting trips to come.

  With the nineteenth century coming to a close, troubles of a very different sort erupted back in Nowy Sacz. In the course of pre-election agitation, the region witnessed civil unrest, with peasants attacking and looting Jewish merchants. With the perspective of time, it is apparent that poor and uneducated Galician peasants were easily manipulated by shrewd politicians when no real solutions to their poverty were readily offered. Prior concerns that the demagoguery of one populist leader would one day spark real violence, this time materialized. The instigators turned the temperature up further by spreading false rumors that the emperor Franz Joseph had given tacit permission for them to attack Jewish property.70

  Undoubtedly, the Lösch and Regiec families were acutely affected when such violence paralyzed their town, with its large Jewish population. The press described groups of rowdy peasants stirring up trouble on the streets and in open markets. A number of Jewish taverns were set on fire, stalls overturned, Jewish possessions and liquor supplies stolen. There were injuries and property damage not only in Nowy Sacz, but also in other towns in the western portion of Galicia. The subtext was clear, reminding all about the dangerous events that had occurred about 50 years earlier. Although the targets of the violence were different this time and no loss of life was reported, there was a collective memory of the Galician Slaughter, and fear of what could happen if the situation was not brought under control. We can only wonder if Eleonora, by now one of the few remaining individuals who had lived through those events of 1846, saw ominous parallels.

  This time, the government acted decisively and with no ambiguity. The governor of Galicia quickly arrived in Nowy Sacz to support local government and oversee the situation. To quell unrest among those who ignored warnings, troops (including cavalry) were sent in, and a brief but effective martial law was declared in 33 counties of western Galicia.71 The police instituted preventive incarceration of more than 1,800 of those who were suspected of taking part in the unrest, with the courts issuing summary judgments against looters. The public was sternly warned that death sentences could be carried out within hours of court verdicts, with no right to appeal by those found guilty of capital offenses. Alth
ough some decried these methods as medieval, order was quickly restored, and calm returned within a few weeks.

  Nowy Sacz. Saving Bank. (Postcard from the end of the nineteenth century or early twentieth century.)

  One postscript to these ugly incidents was somewhat theatrical. A few months later, the New York Times reported that the instigator of the unrest had been taken into police custody but had managed to escape by jumping from a Vienna-bound train moving at the “amazing” speed of 25 miles per hour.72

  The year 1900 started on a sad note. In February, Eleonora Lösch died at the age of 81. With her passing, the generation that had witnessed monumental changes in their daily lives, such as the transition from uncomfortable horse-drawn carriages to travel by train, was fading away. Eleonora and Andreas Lösch had belonged to a generation that once brightened their evenings with flickering candlelight or kerosene lamps, and then experienced the popular gas lighting that opened new ways for self-education and richer social interaction. When Eleonora died, electricity was still a new invention with a somewhat uncertain future. Just a few years before, a well-publicized failure of electric lighting during a theatrical performance had been accompanied by mocking arguments in the press, insisting that gas lamps were a better means of reliable illumination.73 Despite twists and turns in the journey toward modern life in their world, the older Lösches had clearly been ahead of their times. This urbane and multilingual couple’s life story evidenced an openness to change, a still uncommon attitude in their fairly conservative society. By the norms of our times, they were a middle class family that first embraced the fast-paced career of Andreas and then the successful professional life of Bronislawa, not out of financial necessity but as a new way of life for women as well as men.