To Żyrardów

Let me begin here.

On March 4, 2022, I was sitting in the Rochester airport, waiting for a flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was heading out to set up a booth at the Fiery Food Show. Suddenly, my phone started buzzing nonstop. A flurry of emails had just come in—from Bärbel Tillack at the Arolsen Archives: International Center on Nazi Persecution. That was the moment everything changed. That’s when my journey to uncover the truth about my family in Poland truly began.

A Little Background

My father passed away while I was still in high school, in 1983, after a painful battle with cancer. We didn’t have any real family medical history to go on, and the fact that he smoked unfiltered Camels and spent years welding garbage trucks in a poorly ventilated garage certainly didn’t help.

He had escaped Nazi persecution during World War II, spent some time in Germany, and was eventually sponsored to come to the United States. His stories about that time were scattered—sometimes contradictory. We didn’t really know where he came from, and I had no idea that his parents—my grandparents—had survived the war. I assumed they had perished in the 1940s.

But he showed who he was in other ways.

He’d been a cook in the Army, and growing up, his pierogi were a thing of legend—filled with mushroom, sauerkraut, and beef. Never potatoes or cheese. He was always experimenting: building gingerbread houses at the holidays, making chocolates, roasting wild game. He’d stop to pick berries by the side of the road, smoke his own fish, hunt deer. If he could cook it or preserve it, he did.

That part of him stuck with me. And maybe because so much about his past was unknown, I found myself wanting to learn more—not just about my own history, but about people in general. Where they come from. What gets remembered. What gets lost.

I’m named after my two uncles, Eugene and George. My grandparents were Roman and Genowefa, née Koziarek (as I later learned). It was always assumed the brothers had died during the war, but the specifics were unclear.

Since the Cold War was still raging when my father became ill, he was adamant that we not return to Poland. He discouraged us from learning the language. When I once asked him what his middle name was, he said, “It’s too hard for Americans to say.” That tiny missing detail would later unlock everything.

Over the years, I made a few half-hearted attempts to learn more. I knew he had joined the U.S. Army in 1951, but when I requested his military records, I was told they’d been destroyed in a fire. He once mentioned he’d considered becoming a paratrooper—but after surviving Nazi Germany, the idea of jumping into Korea didn’t appeal.

Eventually, with the rise of the internet, I started digging again. “Olczak” is a fairly common Polish name—especially in Buffalo and Chicago—but not on Long Island, where I grew up. So when I came across a “Wiesław Karol Olczak” who’d arrived on the USS Holbrook in 1951 with the same birthdate as my father, I took note. When I asked my mom (also named Carol), she casually said, “Oh yeah—he reversed his first and middle names after he got here.” That was the missing link.

I dove into genealogy sites and found one document from Germany listing my father as "stateless." It didn’t seem helpful at first—until I saw that it came from the Arolsen Archives. In January 2022, I filled out a few forms on their website requesting research help for victims of Nazi persecution. I submitted one form each for my father, his brothers, and my grandparents.

Three months later, in that airport lounge, my phone buzzed with the results: a cover letter and folders on my father, his brothers, and my grandfather. My grandmother Genowefa wasn’t included—she’d never been in Nazi custody.

I learned that in 1940, my father and his brothers had been taken for forced labor in Grabau, Germany. He was just 14. Eugene was 17. George (whose real name, I discovered, was Jerzy) was 18. A year later, my grandfather was also taken and sent to a mine near Gelsenkirchen. He survived. But in June 1944, my uncles were sent to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp—one of the most brutal in the Nazi system.

Based on oral histories, I suspect my uncles were targeted more harshly because they had been involved in scouting—an underground resistance network banned by both Nazis and communists. One old-timer even claimed my uncle Jerzy had a secret code name.

The war was nearly over, but the brutality didn’t stop. Eugeniusz was reported murdered on March 19, 1945, at age 21. Jerzy may have still been alive when the camp was liberated on May 5, but he was never seen again. He likely died in the chaos of liberation.

After the war, my grandparents reunited in Poland, but their children were gone.

What shocked me most was learning they never gave up. For 15 years, they actively searched for their sons. I learned that they both survived the war—my grandfather died in 1975, and my grandmother outlived my father by three years, passing in 1986.

Żyrardów: A Town of Stories

Another revelation: I finally found out where my family was from—Żyrardów, a historic textile town west of Warsaw, named after the French inventor Philippe de Girard. It’s also the original home of Belvedere Vodka. One cousin even told me that during the Soviet advance, some Russian soldiers drowned in a rail tanker full of vodka after scooping out too many buckets. Żyrardów has stories like that—bittersweet, half-forgotten, too strange not to be true.

Despite all the tragedy, I felt energized to learn more. Especially in a world where history is too often denied, rewritten, or ignored, I felt a responsibility to be a living link. I applied for Polish citizenship by descent—and in May 2024, it was approved.

Along the way, I discovered my father had never become a U.S. citizen, despite serving in the Army. He had a green card his entire life. That was confirmed through records from the Center for Migration Studies in New York.

Then, about 18 months ago, my mom casually mentioned a box of letters written to my father—in Polish. The paper was in terrible shape, but I posted some photos to a genealogy translation group. They helped me understand that my grandmother had been in contact with my father in 1959 and 1960. The early letters were warm. The later ones more strained. I don’t have his replies.

Still, those letters gave me more names. I continued researching through MyHeritage.com, which is more widely used in Poland. Since my uncles were murdered before having children, and my grandfather’s side is still murky, I focused on my grandmother Genowefa’s siblings. That’s where I found the strongest leads.

I connected with two distant cousins in the U.S. named Koziarek—one, Pawel (Paul), has been incredibly helpful, especially about scouting history in Żyrardów. Another cousin, Alan Jakman, helped me trace my great-grandmother, Waleria Jachman (or Jakman). Alan told me a fascinating story about Czechs and Germans migrating from the Eagle Mountains to Kamienica Polska in southern Poland. Through that line, I learned I’m one-eighth Czech.

Finding My Way Back

Eventually, I knew I had to go there myself.

I planned to take my mother for All Saints’ Day, when Polish cemeteries come alive with remembrance—candles, flowers, families gathered. Tragically, she passed away a few months before the trip. My wife joined me instead.

We brought laminated signs with our contact info and placed them on family graves. Żyrardów’s cemeteries were breathtaking—candles flickering on every stone, scouts keeping vigil. Even though my grandparents have no living descendants in town, scouts still placed candles on their graves.

The signs worked. I got calls from people who knew my grandparents. I’m still in touch with some of them today.

Żyrardów wasn’t flattened like Warsaw, but its trains still ran to Auschwitz. One story I was told: ethnic Germans living there were given a choice—join the Nazis or get on the train. One man’s grandfather refused and managed to escape and return. Most didn’t.

I’m still uncovering more. But here’s what I know for sure: the stories we lose shape us as much as the ones we remember.

I’m deeply thankful to the Arolsen Archives for their research and preservation work. Without their help, none of this would have come to light. The care they take with history makes it possible for families like mine to understand where we come from—and what was endured.

I hope that in some way, this story encourages others to stay curious and open. We’re all connected to something bigger than ourselves. And understanding that doesn’t weigh us down—it keeps us grounded.

Eugene George Olczak