Introduction 2

Introduction

I didn‘t stop doing research about Kasimir Zuzak in recent years. Where was he born, where did he spend his childhood and youth, where did he marry? Questions that lack an answer or can only partly be answered because a lot of clerical archives in Poland lost church registers from the 18th, 19th and 20th century and thus can‘t give any information.

Due to the already mentioned similarities on photos between Johann Zuzak, my grandfather, and Andrzej Zuizak, a priest from Manchester, England, I concentrated my search on the south of Poland, the former kingdom of Galicia. As already mentioned were many requests to clerical archives without success because of the loss of church registers.

Due to today‘s different spellings of our last name, Zuziak and Zuzak, I‘ve been looking for further clues in phonebooks of the south of Poland. I sent the results to my great uncle Karol Zuziak who agreed to phone them. At first there wasn‘t any success. His search for our ancestor Kasimir Ziuziak, Zuziak or Zuzak were without success.

And finally, in the middle of the week, when phone calls are the most expensive in Poland, Karol gave it another try. He spoke with Jozef Zuziak of Zabno and he told my uncle the following highly interesting fact.

The first part of the story is fiction, the second part reality and the third part, first paragraph has yet to be proven:

First part:

The year is 1755. It was autumn and twilight set already in. Jaromir was preparing his things for the following day when the door opened grating. In came Jadwiga. She must have opened a wrong door since she had only just arrived four days ago. It was love at fist sight. A year later, in June 1756, Jaromir Zuziak and Jadwiga Bukowska married in the Saint Joseph Church in Luszowice. Jadwiga had eight children, three girls (Ewa, Kataryna and Urszula) and five boys (Zbygniew, Wolimir, Witold, Stanislaw and Kazimierz).

It wasn‘t always easy for Jaroslaw and Jadwiga to feed their family. Thus Zbygniew decided to emigrate to the United States of America. Wolimir and Witold stayed in Luszowice. Stanisalw went to Zabno where his great great great grandson, Jozef Zuziak, is running a coal shop. Ewa, Kataryna and Urszula married and stayed with their families in Luszowice. What happened to Kazimierez?

Second part:

Kazimierez didn‘t find a job in Luszowice and didn‘t want to be a burden for his family and siblings. So he decided to join his brother in Zabno. In Zabno he also didn‘t find a suitable job. He was full of thirst for action and adventure and decided to do something his family hadn‘t done before. He built a raft and when it was finally ready on a warm, sunny Sunday morning he put it into the Dunajec and floated to the Vistula and further on. His parents and sibilings have never again heard anything from him.

Third part:

It is autumn. The weather has worsened. The rain lets the water level of the Vistula rise. WIth great effort the people on both sides of the river between Grudziadz and Gniew try to build dams to save their houses from flooding. It is evening. The sun is about to set when Kazimierz Zuziak gets ashore behind Gruziadz in Matawy. He is happily welcomed by the people building the dams and he is willing to help them.

As reward for his efforts he was given a small house (see photo 1) and some farmland. Here he founded a family of which there are many descendants, for example his great great great grandson Manfred Zuzak.

So much about the little story whose second part has been told by Piotr, Peter, Zuziak, (born 1890 and deceased in 1935 in Luszowice) to his son Sigmund Zuziak (born 1921 and deceased on 8th August 2006 in Zabno) and again to his son Józef Zuziak (Wojska Polskiego 12, PL-33-240 Zabno).

Is it really this Kasimir from Luszowice who was our great great great grandfather? In more carful questioning by my uncle Karol where Kasimir Zuziak actually was from and where his birthday could be found in church registers Jozef Zuziak answered that this would be in Luszowice, a neighboring village of Zabno.

My enquiries in Luszowice, in Zabno and especially in Tarnow where so far without success because the ecclesiastical communities and the episcopal archives of Tarnow have no church registers left from this period.

My enquiries in ecclesiastical and governmental archives in the north of Poland resulted in the fact that there was only one Kasimir Zuziak from 1790 to 1913 and that he lived in Greater Kommorsk, Wiekli Komorsk. Another Kazimierz Zuziak (Kasimir Zuzak) wasn‘t found. Thus he must be our common ancestor from the former Kingdom of Galicia.

IT BECOMES

An evening will come,

we will be tired.

We become a lot of understand

and become a lot of forgive.

Till then there will remain,

how it often torments us.

We will further go hunting

After him what does not count at all.

poem by Eleonore Zuzak, Vienna:

Kasimir‘s House

After 20 years of waiting I again took up courage to knock at the door of the house (see photo 1) with the number 31 in ul. Bzowska in Wielki Komorsk. The current resident of the house, Mrs Cejrowska, opened. After telling here the reason of my visit, to see how my ancestors lived, she reacted in a harsh way and said that a family called Ziuzak, Zuziak or Zuzak has never lived in this house.

She further told me that the house had burned down in 2004 and was leveled. She showed me a neighboring plot to prove her point. She also mentioned in the same breath that this had been the house with the number 31. I replied that already 20 years ago this her house was number 31. She was surprised and replied dumbfoundingly that the community had changed house numbers in 2004 and that her house thus had the number for merely two years.
Was it the fear that uncle Karol or another Zuziak could raise a claim on the house? The last owner registered in the land register was Michal Zuziak, Karols grandfather.

After I had assured Mrs Cejrowska that neither uncle Karol nor I would raise any kind of claim on the house we were allowed to enter.

She told us that in the autumn of 2005 two officials for Historic Preservation of Graudenz visited the house and, since it was older than 200 years, it was about to be put under monumental protection.In this context she told me that Kasimir Ziuziak, Zuziak built the house around the end of the year 1790 and left it to his son Peter who registered it at the land registry in Schwetz, Swiecie, in 1844.

Then came the big surprise. Mrs Cejrowska fetched documents from a drawer that proved the selling of the year 1928 to Family Werner and the allocation of the house to Family Smeja.

“And how, Mrs Cejrowska, did you come to own the house?“ - “Well, I have been born in this house, my maiden name is Smeja.“

The scale fell from my eyes and I could all the sudden understand her harsh reactions and doubts. Nevertheless I took a heart and asked her if I could take some photos of the interior of the house as a a keepsake. Mrs Cejrwoska allowed me to do so.

Photo 3 and 4 show the kitchen and photo 5 and 6 a part of the living room through which big beams run and it therefore isn‘t possible to fit the cupboards in a proper height.

Although I wasn‘t able to see any objects that might have belonged to my ancestors I was still impressed to see how they once lived.

Zabno - Luszowice

The genealogy of our family is, as mentioned in the next paragraph, quite exciting.

In the beginning of July 2008 I took the courage to visit Jozef Zuziak in Zabno together with my wife (see photo 17). I want to give thanks to Jan Sowa from Olesno, who acted as interpreter.

Standing in front of Jozef seemed like traveling in a time machine. His resemblance to Marcin, Andrzejs son from Posen was so stunning that I couldn‘t believe it at first. It was him just 20 years older (see photo 7 and 8).

A genetic test could give clarity and security but would, regrettably, ignore the genealogical hierarchy.

We, Jozef Zuziak, Jan Sowa, my wife, and I, drove from Zabno to Luszowice where Kasimir possibly was born to learn more about the family Zuziak. After visiting the grave of Piotr Zuziak (? 1935) we went to the father of Andrzej Zuziak, who is a priest in Manchester.

His father told us that the three Zuziak families aren‘t related to each other or rather don‘t want to be related to each other although they all have their origin in Luszowice. Unfortunately church registers, as far as available, don‘t help to clarify the matter.

Shortly before our departure a fairly interesting discussion was raised. Jan Sowa, who knew my father Helmut Zuzak, fairly well was amazed about Mr Zuziaks appearance, his gestures and his argumentation and saw a stunning similarity there.

During our talk I was only able to understand parts but was often taken aback by Mr Zuziaks actions and was more than once reminded of my father.

Ziuziak, Zuziak, Zuzak, Żużak, Zusack: I

As mentioned in the first part of my research of my last name of 2002 the name is of western-slawic origin with a core area in southern Poland and the former polish Ukraine, the Kingdom of Galicia. During the revolutions and the industrialization of Europe in the 19th century many people tried to flee violence and poverty. They looked for a new home and found it for example in Germany / Prussia, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and North America.

Here are two charts refering to Poland in 2009 (see chart 11).

Research has shown that the Zuziaks originally came from a core area in Tarnow in the western part of the Kingdom of Galicia and have spread from there across the whole of Poland.

Photo 12 shows that our name “Zuzak“ is rare because of its easy pronunciation. Research has also shown that in the archives of the charts seen in this document there was nor is any Kasimir Zuziak / Zuzak because there are no more documents available.

Ziuziak, Zuziak, Zuzak, Zuzak and also Zusack is a change in spelling that is not directly comprehensible. Until the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 1920s the spelling of most slavic names was simplified through authorities but the meaning of the name stays the same.

Ziuziak, Zuziak, Zuzak, Żużak, Zusack: II

lollypop, sucker, comforter, thumbsucker, love bite

The change of spelling of the caption also happened to our name and in almost the same order. The version “Zuzak“ was adopted in 1912 by my great grandfather with the acquiring of German citizenship.

Concerning today‘s spelling of our last name “Zuzak“ I have once again looked into the old documents. Our great grandfather Jan Zuziak acquired the German citizenship in 1912 and changed his name to “Zuzak“. His children Rozalia, Marie, Valerie, Felix, Andrzej, grandfather Johann and my grandfather, they all were called “Zuzak“.

How come that the son of Felix Zuzak, Waldemar (see photos 13 and 14) is suddenly called Żużak? I think that the story which was told to me by Andrezje‘s mother is rather plausible. After the second world war Waldemar still felt as a Pole. He was afraid of reprisals by his employees at court. He was judge and notary in Bydgoszcz and therefore changed his name to Żużak to make it look more Polish. He didn‘t want to go back to the original form of Zuziak but wanted to keep the tradition of Jan, his grandfather. So far the statement of Aunt Irena on our visit to Lidzbark Warminski in 1986.

The different spelling is also to ascribe to the dialectic of the time. In the episcopal archives of Peplin, Poland and Regensburg, Germany exists only the spelling “Zuziak“. Therefore it is safe to assume that this is the original spelling. In church registers of Wielki Komorsk, however, you can find the aformentioned versions “Ziuziak“ and “Zuziak“.

In the files of the register office of Graudenz, Grudziadz you also find the last-mentioned versions “Zuzak“ and “Zusack“.

Kasimir Zuziak and Marianne Ewert

In the beginning of June 2008 I was at the edge of the village Dragacz (see photo 18), close to Graudenz, Grudziadz on the river Vistula. Opposite a very old church is a small graveyard (see photo 15). Die people who were laid to rest here are mostly unknown and nameless. The tumbstones, as far as they still exist, bear no names or personal information.

A citizen of the village told me that this is a Mennonite graveyard and that it had been abandoned in 1945 because mostly German Mennonites were laid to rest there. During our conversation he mentioned the name “Ewert“. I started to listen more attentively and asked some questions. He told me that the family Ewert lived in Dragacz for a very long time, a lot more than 300 years, up until 1945. Someone of the family was even mayor in the 1930s.

Back at home I asked the Mennonite Research Center in Bolanden-Weierhof for help. They confirmed that the last name “Ewert“ was of mennonite origin and that the family lived in Dragacz. I asked them for a marriage certificate because it was common to marry in the village the bride lived in but it didn‘t exist. They further told me that Marianne was expelled by the family because of marring a Catholic and that all information about her was deleted out of church registers. Therefore they were unable to help me.

My search for a marriage certificate of Kasimir and Marianne at the Catholic parish in Dragacz and in the neighbouring communities of Bzowo and Wielkie Lublin as well as in Pelpin in the archive of the dioceses was until today without success because church registers had no information.

Fragment

The aforementioned fragment of a pedigree in 2002 (see Genealogy Part I) was completed. During a training of the church of Rheinhessen I met someone from Neviges. Because I knew that a cousin of my father, Gerda Zwirnmann, née Ickler, lived in Neviges I asked him to look for this last name in the region.

Two weeks later, I was back at home, I received a letter from Neviges with the information that a person called Wolfgang Zwirnmann lives in Velbert.

I called him and found out that it was the son of my father‘s cousin. He wasn‘t much interested in genealogy and just as I wanted to say goodbye he mentioned that his sister, Elke Zwirnmann, was doing genealogy for many years. I saw a glimmer of hope and asked him for an address or phone number of his sister. He told me that he didn‘t have an address at hand because his sister lives in Barcelona, Spain but he gave me a phone number and an email-address.

I called her and we found out that her brother and herself are both related to me. Both sibilings are children of my father‘s cousin Gerda. She gave me lots of very interesting photos of our ancestors and the missing pieces of the pedigree (see chart 16).

Afterword

I want to thank all those people, for example the Catholic parishes in the north and south of Poland and the Mennonite Research Center in Bolanden-Weierhof, who didn‘t hesitate to help me with free information and suggestions of different archives.

Guldental, 03.04.2009

Manfred Zuzak

Annex