Finding my roots…

July 9, 2009

Poland…. WOW what a place! In the last few days here in Krakow Poland I have witnessed with my own two eyes the true horrors that the human species can inflict upon each other and also the beauty in life. This city has not been all about death, it has actually been the complete opposite. The Polish people have been some of the most friendly, warm and loveable bunch I have ever met. The women here are drop dead gorgeous and they seem to out number the guys 5 to 1. Krakow itself is a beautiful city very much like Prague but filled with nicer people and less tourist. The food is great and the beer gardens are by far my favorite. I’m not sure if the fact that I’m 50% polish is making a difference in my love for this city or maybe it’s just truly is an amazing place.

I have also been spending some time trying to research my family tree. It seems that my dad’s side is %100 polish or at least that’s what we think. I have my grandmother’s birth certificate, which shows that her parents “My great grandparents” were born in Poland. Unfortatally it doesn’t say where they were born so it is making it difficult to find any info. It seems when people came over from Europe to the US via els Island, last names seemed to have been screwed up and the proper spelling and translation was lost. Some of the first bit of advice I got was that maybe they were Jewish, but after deeper research I might now come from a noble background with the surname of “Odrowaz”. The Odrowaz name dates back to the 10^th century and comes from the area now known as the Czech Republic. Finding my roots is proving harder then I thought, but I feel I will leave here with some sort of idea… they might not be big deep roots but it something.

Most people don’t leave Krakow without visiting the famous Nazi death camps of Auschwitz. Learning about World War II in a history book is one thing, visiting the concentration camps is another. It truly is hard to express the feeling of being at the camps. It almost makes you lose hope in humanity, and the sad fact is that unspeakable things like what happened here 60 years ago are still happening in parts of the world today, like Sudan! I don’t want to end this on a down note but out of respect for the millions of people that lost their lives.. here are some picture from Auschwitz so you’ll never forget!

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