embassy events 2008 

Polish All Saints’ Day – Through American Eyes

 

Allen Paul

BEYOND THE GRAVE…
All Saints’ Day in Poland
November 1, 2008

Millions of my fellow Americans once again will rub their eyes open on All Saints’ Day with a Halloween hangover from the night before.  American kids still binge on candy and try to be scary, but more and more the observance has become an orgy of self-expression for those on the threshold of adulthood.  Are we missing something?  After witnessing observances at Powazki in 1989 and again last year, I think we are.

Even the Grim Reaper leaves death’s door slightly ajar on All Saints’ Day in Poland.  The ties that bind are unmistakable on this special day.  It is a powerful experience for millions of Poles to embrace and reflect on that greatest of all finalities as they honor dead fathers, mothers, children, siblings, soldiers and statesmen, composers, professors and others from all walks of life.

I think the Poles have their priorities in order because on this day almost all aspects of life – from going to work to buying a liter of mleko – come to a complete stop.  Trams and buses still run, but only, it seems, to ferry the Poles to cemeteries where age-old rituals are observed: the placing of kwiaty on graves – from the single rose to magnificent wagon wheel-sized wreaths – and the lighting of candles, small oceans of candles, which blaze away inside colored glass jars, emitting a soft glow of spirituality. 

It is impressive that none of these rituals is rushed: the Poles linger, reflect and pray with such naturalness that one senses perhaps they do reach beyond man’s mortal limits to reconnect with ancestors who strain from the grave to be remembered and to preserve bonds that can be eternal.  One feels this in fleeting images: a widow kneeling at the foot of her husband’s grave; parents whispering to a wide-eyed child; a young couple holding each other close, staring into the autumn mists. 

Most amazing to me, the atmosphere is not one of great sadness.  Instead there is a feeling of subdued celebration, of deepest gratitude for sacrifices great and small: for parents who scrimped and saved for their children; for the tender mercies of the caregiver; for poets whose vigils in the long dark years of Russian rule gave tonic to the nation’s soul; and, always, for the valor of lives lost in endless uprisings, in the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion, the Warsaw Uprising and the long and lonely struggle against godless communism.  This ritualistic homage-paying, occurring from the smallest village to the greatest city, defines, in part, what it means to be a Pole.  It is a pilgrimage not to be missed – and few Poles do.

I first witnessed the ritual the week before the Berlin Wall fell; not much has changed since.  Last year I took a packed bus to Powazki, the most famous of all Warsaw cemeteries just before noon and emerged on a sidewalk lined with flower stalls rippling in color – from  chrysanthemums the size of dinner plates, to exquisite wine-tinted roses, to potted geraniums, and many others on the rainbow spectrum.  Across the street the high walls of the cemetery join at the entrance to the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, patron saint of missionaries, where a “Mass for the Dead” was held.

Like the bus, the church, too, was packed.  All the seats quickly filled, leaving many standing in the center aisle.  The altar was covered with large displays of mums, but the most impressive display placed there was borne by a small boy flanked by two small girls – a simple bouquet of roses.  The mass featured a dramatic reading from the bible by an actor, a homily from the archbishop, a women’s choir of angelic voices and a moving song sung by children.  Its most impressive aspect was the seamless interaction between congregants and priests, schooled, no doubt, by countless repetitions of word, phrase and song, but retaining, still, an air of spontaneity.

The recessional led down the aisle and out a side door into the cemetery where it followed the path of the Avenue of the Meritorious. The entire congregation surged out of the church and pressed forward, behind the priests, nuns and acolytes, following as closely as possible.  Periodically the procession stopped and the archbishop burned incense, and, metaphorically, evil spirits were chased away.  Some of these rituals are said to come from pagan times. 

Poles are rightfully proud of those buried at Powazki: among them Boleslaw Prus, whose novels of acid realism shocked many at the turn of the last century; Marian Rejewski, the mathematician and cryptologist who broke the code of the German Enigma machine and hastened the end of World War II; Wladyslaw Szpilman, subject of the Oscar-winning film, “The Pianist”; Irena Sendlerowa, the Catholic social worker who saved 2,500 Jewish children from the Holocaust; and many others.

When the procession returned to the church, it paused before reentering by a simple marker that honors thousands of Polish officers who were murdered by the Bolsheviks in what is known as the Katyń Forest Massacre.  The procession through the cemetery had been lead by a color guard from “Katyń Families,” an organization which has done much to preserve their memory and to maintain their final resting places in Russia and the Ukraine.   

I watched the incense swirled up the wall behind the Katyn color guard, but could not help thinking that the evil spirits, at least in this instance, will be hard to chase away.  Russia still does not acknowledge Katyn as a genocide, or even as a Stalinist crime.  The impasse remains a major barrier to better relations between Russia and Poland.  This issue is a great barometer for that relationship, and more Americans need to understand why Poles deserve their support on this and other vital issues. 

Beyond the flowers, the candles and the incense, the Poles – perhaps more than any other people – remain in touch with their past, both personally and collectively.  Their national identity is so strong that almost two centuries of brutal foreign rule failed utterly to diminish it at all.  They retain a clear idea of who they are, drawn in part from beyond the grave, from ancestors who surely speak to them on All Saints’ Day.

Allen Paul is the author of “Katyn” and is writing a novel about Poland that will be published in the fall of 2009.