In 1993 I traveled with friends Horst and Mirjam Schirm and Harald and Marian Kunath from Dresden, Germany, to Jawor, Poland. Horst’s family had lived in Jawor — then Jauer, Germany — as a young child. With the rest of his family, he was evacuated from Jawor in late summer 1945. He wanted to see where he had lived. We traveled from Dresden to Jablonné v Podještĕdi in present-day Czechia and stayed overnight with the Miroslav Koutecký family. When we neared Schreiberhau (today, Szklarka Poręba, Poland), Horst recognized a landmark from his family’s trek: a low stone wall, built to protect passers-by from tumbling into the Kamienczyk River below. His memory began to return as he eagerly walked upon the wall and looked down into the river below. Our next goal was the dairy the Schirm family lived at which is between Jawor and Paszowice (Poischwitz in 1945). We were able to tour the dairy and taste some of the cheese it produced and had drinks in a tiny restaurant in Paszowice. Jawor itself seemed — in Horst’s memory — to have changed little since he lived there. We saw the school he attended (boarded up because of a fire) and the arcades shading the stores in the shopping street. It was a lovely trip into the past. I learned to love that corner of Poland and hope to return some day.
Constance L. Lieber 