A Candle for Poland
by Suzanne Strempek Shea
APRIL 12, 2010 TAGS:
For three years - since my friends Ted and Annie Deppe carefully transported it from Krakow to their home in Ireland, then to the writing residency in Maine where we were reuniting - the red glass votive holder that is my souvenir from their trip to Poland has sat on my kitchen bookshelf.
Four inches tall, of transparent red glass crowned by a golden metal lid with 10 circular holes around its edge, it’s nothing grand. Depending on the exchange rate for the złoty, it would cost no more than a buck or two. But it’s worth a lot to me, both for the sweet gesture the travelers made, and for its purpose. As is the custom in the country where it came from, the same place all my grandparents came from, I take it down to light when I mark the passing of a soul.
At the news of a loss, Catholics around the world will light candles. I did that in my Polish-Catholic church since I was old enough to hold the tiny strip of wood to the flame of a candle already burning in its red glass holder. I’d move the fire to a fresh wick. I’d kneel. I’d think of the dead. I’d say a prayer.
In Poland, Dzien Wszystkich Świętych - All Saints Day – begins the month of November with candles lit by the thousands. Ancient Poles marked a death by opening the doors and windows, and turning mirrors to face the wall so the soul would not be trapped indoors. Sweeping aside such pagan customs, Christianity substituted prayers and candles, which stood for the eternal light that was the soul’s desire. On both Nov. 1 and 2, modern Poles make pilgrimages to the cemetery to decorate graves with fall flowers, and to light votives that flicker throughout the outdoor service and prayer vigils to come. When tragedy strikes, they make other pilgrimages – to the center of town, to their churches, to the doorstep of a fallen leader – and bring along the ubiquitous red votive holders, lighting the wick inside. They kneel. They think of the dead. They say a prayer.
After the weekend started with word of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and every one of the 96 other passengers on a dignitary-filled plane, I took down my own red votive holder. There were so many to pray for, so much to make me sad. The group was headed to Russia for an historic Polish-Russian commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, in which 22,000 Polish political prisoners were shot in the back of the head by Josef Stalin’s NKVD, forerunner of the KGB.
For nearly half a century, the Soviets blamed the Nazis for the mass murder. The leaders of Poland’s then-Communist government went along with the lie. It wasn’t until 1990, after the collapse of communism, that former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev confirmed the NKVD’s responsibility. The massacre continues to spark conflict between Moscow and Warsaw, but many were heartened when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first Soviet or Russian head to create a joint ceremony of remembrance. Viewed as great progress was his inviting Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, to a Katyn commemoration last week.
Then came Saturday’s disaster. So much of a government lost. The national bank president. The deputy foreign minister. The head of the National Security Office, the deputy parliament speaker, the head of the Olympic Committee, the civil rights commissioner. The army’s chief of staff, the navy chief commander, the heads of the air and land forces.
The dead include relatives of Katyn victims, and Anna Walentynowicz, the very person whose 1980 firing from the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk was the flint for the workers’ strike that eventually led to the transformative movement Solidarity.
On TV, in the newspaper, online, I see images of the mourners. Whether they’re in Warsaw, or in heavily Polish enclaves like Chicago or Montreal, or a few miles from me in my late father’s hometown of Chicopee, Mass., they bring flowers and candles. The colors are typically red and white – those of the Polish flag – as is the glowing sea of flowers and votives that have been placed in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw, home of both the late president and late first lady.
“We’re coming here to light candles because this empty palace symbolizes that the nation has lost a father-figure,” Sylwia Jancarz, a student at Warsaw Polytechnic University, told Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “Until there’s a new president, we all feel a bit like orphans.”
And, in our sadness about this tragedy that’s befallen a country with so many horrors in its history, and so much heartening progress made toward a modern identity since Walentynowicz’s sacking, “We are all Poles.” Those four words composed the e-mail sent Sunday morning from my friend Gary, who with the surname Santaniello and strong roots in Scotland, is anything but Polish.
Ted Deppe is a Yankee descended from Jonathan “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman. But he, too, joined me this weekend in mourning, closing his e-mailed condolences with “Blessings on us all.”
That’s just what I repeated as I took down the votive holder he and Annie brought me. I struck a match. I moved the fire to the fresh wick. I knelt. I thought of the dead. I said a prayer.
Suzanne Strempek Shea is a regular contributor to Obit.
Four inches tall, of transparent red glass crowned by a golden metal lid with 10 circular holes around its edge, it’s nothing grand. Depending on the exchange rate for the złoty, it would cost no more than a buck or two. But it’s worth a lot to me, both for the sweet gesture the travelers made, and for its purpose. As is the custom in the country where it came from, the same place all my grandparents came from, I take it down to light when I mark the passing of a soul.At the news of a loss, Catholics around the world will light candles. I did that in my Polish-Catholic church since I was old enough to hold the tiny strip of wood to the flame of a candle already burning in its red glass holder. I’d move the fire to a fresh wick. I’d kneel. I’d think of the dead. I’d say a prayer.
In Poland, Dzien Wszystkich Świętych - All Saints Day – begins the month of November with candles lit by the thousands. Ancient Poles marked a death by opening the doors and windows, and turning mirrors to face the wall so the soul would not be trapped indoors. Sweeping aside such pagan customs, Christianity substituted prayers and candles, which stood for the eternal light that was the soul’s desire. On both Nov. 1 and 2, modern Poles make pilgrimages to the cemetery to decorate graves with fall flowers, and to light votives that flicker throughout the outdoor service and prayer vigils to come. When tragedy strikes, they make other pilgrimages – to the center of town, to their churches, to the doorstep of a fallen leader – and bring along the ubiquitous red votive holders, lighting the wick inside. They kneel. They think of the dead. They say a prayer.
After the weekend started with word of the plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski and every one of the 96 other passengers on a dignitary-filled plane, I took down my own red votive holder. There were so many to pray for, so much to make me sad. The group was headed to Russia for an historic Polish-Russian commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre, in which 22,000 Polish political prisoners were shot in the back of the head by Josef Stalin’s NKVD, forerunner of the KGB.
For nearly half a century, the Soviets blamed the Nazis for the mass murder. The leaders of Poland’s then-Communist government went along with the lie. It wasn’t until 1990, after the collapse of communism, that former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev confirmed the NKVD’s responsibility. The massacre continues to spark conflict between Moscow and Warsaw, but many were heartened when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became the first Soviet or Russian head to create a joint ceremony of remembrance. Viewed as great progress was his inviting Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, to a Katyn commemoration last week.
Then came Saturday’s disaster. So much of a government lost. The national bank president. The deputy foreign minister. The head of the National Security Office, the deputy parliament speaker, the head of the Olympic Committee, the civil rights commissioner. The army’s chief of staff, the navy chief commander, the heads of the air and land forces.
The dead include relatives of Katyn victims, and Anna Walentynowicz, the very person whose 1980 firing from the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk was the flint for the workers’ strike that eventually led to the transformative movement Solidarity.On TV, in the newspaper, online, I see images of the mourners. Whether they’re in Warsaw, or in heavily Polish enclaves like Chicago or Montreal, or a few miles from me in my late father’s hometown of Chicopee, Mass., they bring flowers and candles. The colors are typically red and white – those of the Polish flag – as is the glowing sea of flowers and votives that have been placed in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw, home of both the late president and late first lady.
“We’re coming here to light candles because this empty palace symbolizes that the nation has lost a father-figure,” Sylwia Jancarz, a student at Warsaw Polytechnic University, told Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “Until there’s a new president, we all feel a bit like orphans.”
And, in our sadness about this tragedy that’s befallen a country with so many horrors in its history, and so much heartening progress made toward a modern identity since Walentynowicz’s sacking, “We are all Poles.” Those four words composed the e-mail sent Sunday morning from my friend Gary, who with the surname Santaniello and strong roots in Scotland, is anything but Polish.
Ted Deppe is a Yankee descended from Jonathan “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman. But he, too, joined me this weekend in mourning, closing his e-mailed condolences with “Blessings on us all.”
That’s just what I repeated as I took down the votive holder he and Annie brought me. I struck a match. I moved the fire to the fresh wick. I knelt. I thought of the dead. I said a prayer.
Suzanne Strempek Shea is a regular contributor to Obit.
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