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Cherishing the culture
By Bob Jackson
YOUNGSTOWN
It’s been more than three decades since Janina Kukielka and her family left Poland and traveled more than 4,400 miles to begin a new life in the United States.
Sunday evening, preparing to celebrate Christmas with others who share her Polish heritage, she felt closer to home.
“Whatever preserves the Polish tradition is very close to my heart,” the 77-year-old Austintown woman said.
Kukielka was among dozens of people who took part in the Youngstown Polish Arts Club’s annual Wigilia observance at the Brier Hill Cultural Center, the former St. Casimir Polish Catholic Church at 145 Jefferson St.
Wigilia is Polish for “vigil,” said Sandra Cika, Polish Arts Club president.
“It’s basically doing what Poles around the world do on Christmas Eve,” said Cika. “It symbolizes keeping watch, waiting for the birth of Christ.”
The Polish Arts Club hosts the event every year, helping people of Polish descent to hold onto their roots and teaching younger people about Polish holiday traditions.
Wigilia includes a meatless 12-course meal, followed by “koledy,” or the singing of traditional Polish Christmas carols. The meal is 12 courses to symbolize the 12 Apostles of Christ, and is prepared according to centuries-old Polish traditions. It includes such traditional Polish dishes as oplatek, a wafer blessed by a priest; mushroom soup; poppyseed and noodles; and fried or broiled fish.
“But it’s not just a meal,” Cika said. “There’s a lot of folk tradition,” such as setting an extra plate at the table for “the unexpected guest” or “the weary traveler.”
For Kukielka, having others with whom to share such rich, cultural traditions is priceless.
She and her husband, Stanislaw, came to the United States from Poland in 1983. Stanislaw, 78, was involved in the Solidarity movement in Poland in the early 1980s and ended up being jailed for 10 months.
After he was released, he was unable to find work to support himself, Janina, and their two children, so they decided to leave the country.
Janina said they had opportunities to go to Canada or South America, but representatives at the Polish Consulate suggested that they move to Ohio in the United States. Stanislaw had worked in a steel mill in Poland, and the family was told that similar jobs would be easy to come by in Youngstown.
“They probably didn’t know that the steel mills here had closed,” Janina said. The family moved to Youngstown, but there were no steel mill jobs to be had.
So, the family earned money by cleaning St. Casimir Church while living in its former convent for some five months, Janina said.
“And I cleaned houses,” she said. “I’m proud of it because every penny of it was very helpful to us.”
Employment wasn’t the only obstacle the family faced when they arrived in Ohio.
“The biggest obstacle was the language,” Janina said. “It was very hard in the beginning. We had no family here – nobody, just the four of us.”
But the local Polish community rallied to help the family assimilate, and they eventually made a permanent home here. Their children both attended Youngstown State University, while Janina and Stanislaw saved enough money to finance a home in Austintown.
The Polish Arts Club was a godsend because it put the family in touch with others who shared their background. Being able to celebrate their traditional holiday among other Poles is special.
“It is beautiful. It reminds me of my own country,” Janina said.
Cika said the Polish Arts Club was founded 80 years ago by Florence Turowski, who was frustrated that American people didn’t know about Polish traditions, culture and art, so wanted a way to spread the word. Turowski partnered with local businessman Joseph Butler, for whom the Butler Museum of American Art is named, and the local Polish Arts Club was born.
The mission of the Polish Arts Club is to promote Polish culture, arts and heritage, which gets more difficult with the passage of time because younger people tend to be less interested in culture clubs.
“It’s so easy for it to get lost,” Cika said. “That’s why we do things like this every year. If you take even a year off, it’s more difficult to get it back.”
Marta Mazur moved to the United States from Poland in 1981, when she was 12.
“It was a very traumatic move,” said Mazur, 46, who now lives in the Youngstown suburb of Poland with her husband, Jan, and their 12-year-old son. “It was a cultural shock.” Jan also was born in Poland.
Among other places, Mazur lived in New York City before eventually settling in the Youngstown area in 2009. She missed her native Polish food and found no restaurants in the area where it was offered, so she started Krakus Polish Deli & Bakery on Market Street in Boardman, which she still operates.
“Events like this are important to me,” Mazur said of Sunday’s Wigilia. “I have a son, and I want him to learn what it’s like to celebrate as a [Polish] community, not just our own household traditions,” she said.