Galician Trails: The Forgotten Story of One Family

by Zalewski, Andrew

  21. Dziennik Polski September 24, 1869. The reopening of the newspaper was accompanied by this front-page editorial. It referred to the seven-year period in which the newspaper had been forced to suspend publication, after harassment by police. The fall of the government of Anton von Schmerling in Vienna meant that attempts to reform Austria through a German-speaking bureaucracy had failed. Now the tone became more positive, focusing on a way to achieve maximal self-governance for Galicia within Austria.

  22. Agnieszka B. Lance. Literary and Cultural Images of a Nation without a State. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2008; p. 66. The first step toward autonomy came with the emperor’s Fundamental Law of 1867, which provided Galicia with a local legislature and executive branch. In 1869, the Polish language was granted equal rights, and in 1873, the school board started providing full-time education in the local languages.

  23. Daniel Unowsky. The Pomp and Politics of Patriotism: Imperial Celebrations in Habsburg Austria, 1848–1916. Purdue University Press 2005; pp. 57–69. The book provides a detailed description of the visit by Franz Joseph to Galicia.

  Dziennik Polski September 12 and 14, 1880, reported on Franz Joseph’s visit to Lvov, which was in stark contrast to his prior trips to Galicia. Symbolically, the degree of autonomy was also well-captured in a report by Kronika, the weekly paper of Stanislawow, in the issue of September 16, 1880. It described Franz Joseph’s visit, with details of speeches at the welcoming ceremony.

  The emperor returned to Lvov in September 1894. The official reason was his visit to a national fair. As before, Franz Joseph was greeted warmly, albeit with less fanfare. By now, it was almost business as usual. Consistent with the spirit of the cultural autonomy of Galicia, he sometimes signed his name in commemorative books using Polish rather than the German spelling (Kurjer Lwowski September 10, 1894).

  24. William J. Showalter. “Partitioned Poland.” National Geographic 1915; vol. 27, p. 88.

  CHAPTER 2

  1. Mathias Lösch was born around 1760 and married Anna Sedlaczek sometime before 1795. There is no evidence of Anna’s presence in Wieliczka, which suggests that she had died before the Lösch family arrived there. Their son, Christian Lösch, was born about 1795. I suspect that he was born outside Galicia during his father’s military service.

  In an application by Christian Lösch to the administrators of the salt mines, there is a reference to Mathias’s 27 years of service in the Austrian military (Salt Mine Museum, Wieliczka; March 19, 1817; Akta Salinarne sygn. 689; k. 208–209).

  2. Gazeta Krakowska November 15, 1809, reprinted full text of the treaty signed on October 14, 1809. The article four of the Schönbrunn Treaty referred to French-negotiated division of Wieliczka between Saxon king and Austrian emperor.

  An internal letter to an administrator of the mines indicates the continuous employment of Mathias Lösch as an inspector from 1809 until 1818 (Akta Salinarne sygn. 689, k. 208–209; and the annual Schematismus der Königreiches Galizien und Lodomerien zuhr 1813–1818, Lemberg). Mathias Lösch died on March 15, 1818, in Wieliczka.

  3. Gazeta Krakowska November 26, 1809, described an eyewitness account of the visit to Wieliczka by Prince Joseph Poniatowski, a hugely popular commander-in-chief of military forces of the Duchy of Warsaw.

  Marian Kallas. “Z dziejow Wieliczki w latach 1809–1813.” In Studia i Materialy do Dziejow Zup Solnych w Polsce. Muzeum Zup Krakowskich. Wieliczka; vol. X, pp. 187–204. In reality, the joint administration was fraught with controversy. By 1812, the administrative powers had shifted entirely to Austria, and the Duchy of Warsaw ceased to exist by January 1813. In 1815, the gathering of victorious countries at the Congress of Vienna affirmed that Wieliczka was to remain in Galicia.

  4. Schematismus der Königreiches Galizien und Lodomerien für das Jahr 1815. Lemberg 1815; p. 153. Christian Lösch is mentioned in the section “k.k. Administration der Salzwerkes zu Wieliczka, Buchbaltung Amtsdiener” (accounting clerk) for the first time in 1815. Actually, the promotion had taken place the previous year. In the same yearbook, Mathias Lösch is listed in the section “Berg-Inspection Visitationsbeamter” (inspector).

  5. Andreas’s mother, Antonina Lösch (maiden name Pinkas), died in 1823. Andreas’s father remarried twice: in 1824 to Marianna Kwiatkowska, who died in 1841; and to Josepha Ferenz in 1843. Christian Lösch had nine children; at least two from his first marriage, to Antonina Pinkas, did not survive.

  6. Continuato Edictorum et Mandatorum Universalium in Regnis Galiciae et Lodomeriae. Leopoli 1774; pp.104–105. The ruling was issued by Heinrich Auersperg, the third governor of Galicia, just two years after the First Partition. It likely applied to eastern Galicia, where small deposits of salt were also known.

  7. Bayard Taylor. “The Salt Mines of Wieliczka, 1850” in Eva March Tappan, ed., The World’s Story: A History of the World in Story, Song and Art. Boston 1914; vol. VI, pp. 370–377. Bayard Taylor (1825–1878), poet, journalist, and popular writer, was from Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

  8. A report issued in 1832 of an inspection of the warehouse that was overseen by Christian referenced the return of a deposit in the amount of 600 florins placed by him at the beginning of his responsibilities in Turowka, near Wieliczka. This clearly exceeded his annual salary for years to come. The document contains Christian’s signature (Akta Salinarne sygn. 1133, k. 205–228).

  9. Provinzial: Handbuch der Königreiche Galizien und Lodomerien für das Jahr 1850, Lemberg, p. 196, listed Christian Lösch as the official in charge (einnehmer) of the office of transportation in Turowka.

  There is no single method that accurately translates past values into today’s economic realities. Bayard Taylor’s 1850 estimate is equivalent, in 2010 dollars, to $28,800,000 using the Consumer Price Index, $203,000,000 using the unskilled wage index, $433,000,000 using the production worker index, and $5,680,000,000 using the share-of-GDP method.

  10. To the east of Cracow, preparations for the railway construction started in 1850. Once completed, this route would be known as the Imperial Royal Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis (k.k. priv. Galizische Carl Ludwig Bahn). It would give rise to a dead-end extension to Turowka. Beyond Turowka, the last stretch of the railroad was financed by the company; it used horses between the mine shafts and the storehouses until approximately 1889 (courtesy of Mrs. Małgorzata Międzybrodzka; History Department; The Salt Mines Museum in Wieliczka, Poland).

  11. This salary information was based on records of the salt mines of Wieliczka from 1861. The highest-paid employee was Johann Geramb, director of the mines, earning 2,158 florins. The salary difference of less than three times between Christian Lösch and Johann Geramb was trivial compared to the compensation spread in today’s corporate environment (courtesy of Mrs. Małgorzata Międzybrodzka; History Department; The Salt Mines Museum in Wieliczka, Poland).

  12. The names of the employees are from Handbuch des Statthalterei-Gebietes in Galizien für das Jahr 1865; Lemberg; pp. 210–212. Unfortunately, Christian Lösch did not enjoy his retirement for too long. He died on May 25, 1871, in Wieliczka.

  13. Schematismus der Königreiche Galizien und Lodomerien für das Jahr 1843–1847. Lemberg. Adam Kwiatkowski worked in the district office in Tarnow alongside Andreas. In earlier years, Adam was employed in the governmental office in Wadowice (1840–1841), where he could easily have come into contact with the Wilczek family from the nearby town of Andrychow. This could have been one of many opportunities for Andreas Lösch to be introduced to his future wife, Eleonora Wilczek.

  14. Schematismus der Königreiche Galizien und Lodomerien für das Jahr 1846. Lemberg; p. 50. Andreas Lösch was transferred to the district office in Jaslo, where he was listed as kreiskanzlisten.

  15. Christian Lösch married Josepha Ferenz in 1843. As with the family of his first wife, the father of the bride was also employed in the mines of Wieliczka. Joseph Ferenz was the head of the transportation department of the Turowka mines, the same position that Christian would
occupy in a few years’ time. During the uprising of 1846, Amalia Josepha was less than two years old and Stephania was aged only a few months, having been born in the fall of the previous year.

  Gazeta Lwowska March 12, 1846, and Gazeta Krakowska March 17, 1846, printed report of the Lieutenant Colonel Benedek of the Austrian army who entered Wieliczka on February 26, 1846. Earlier in the day, heavy fighting with street battles erupted in the town of Gdow only about 9 miles east of Wieliczka. The advancing Austrians, supported by the peasants, killed 150 rebels and took about 60 prisoners there, with the rest of the insurgents retreating toward Wieliczka and Cracow. Despite bad weather, with the fields and roads covered with mud, the Austrians were in hot pursuit. The same day, Benedek’s unit entered Wieliczka; his report spoke of four people shot dead and the impending house searches for the rebels hiding in town. The hotbed of insurgency, the city of Cracow, was taken over by Austrian troops on March 3, 1846.

  16. Gazeta Lwowska March 3, 1846, reported that a few hundred insurgents from approximately 70 villages had gathered around Tarnow on February 18. With the complicity of von Wallerstern, the peasants attacked the antigovernment forces, killing many and taking hundreds of prisoners.

  17. Agnieszka B. Nance. Literary and Cultural Images of a Nation without a State. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 2008; pp. 62–64. The planning of the nobles’ uprising was leaked to Austrian officials in Galicia, leading to preemptive arrests of several would-be leaders. Ultimately, it was merely a nine-day event that sparked a backlash of peasant hostility.

  18. Stefan Dembinski. Rok 1846 Kronika Dworów Szlacheckich. Jaslo 1896; pp. 170–172. In addition, Gazeta Lwowska March 3 and 12, 1846, confirmed unrest in the Jaslo district and in Wieliczka. The report stated that the peasants refused to support the insurgents and actively fought against them.

  19. Eleonora Barbara Wilczek had been born in Andrychow, western Galicia, on January 5, 1819. Her parents were Ignatius (Ignaz) Wilczek and Thecla Czerwinski. She had at least two siblings, Antonina Marianna, born in 1814, and Ferdinandus Antonius, born in 1816.

  It is possible that Joannes Bochenski was the man connecting the Lösches with Eleonora’s father, a magistrate official in Andrychow. Bochenski, a secretary in the Wieliczka magistrate, had served as a witness at Andreas’s parents’ wedding and was a godparent to one of his siblings. An alternative explanation is that the bride’s father had come across the Lösches while arranging the purchase of salt for his municipality.

  20. Families with the name “Wilczek” originated in Silesia, near the town of Kosel (Kedzierzyn-Kozle in today’s Poland). Those with noble titles built castles and palaces in Königsberg (Klimkovice in today’s Czech Republic); Konczyce Wielkie (near Cieszyn in today’s Poland); and Hultschin (Hlučin, in today’s Czech Republic), which straddled the territory of Silesia, divided between Austria and Prussia in the eighteenth century. Some Wilczeks distinguished themselves as government officials serving the Austrian empress Maria Theresa and the emperors of Austria Joseph II, Leopold II, and Francis I. Among lesser-known members of the extended family was Jacob Wilczek, a physician (kreisarzt) working in several towns of western Galicia at the turn of the nineteenth century (Schematismus für die Königreich Westgalizien 1798–1806), and Joseph Wilczek, professor of theology in Jagiellonian University in Cracow in the 1850s.

  21. The Foundation of Franciscus Wilczek Sr. was established in September of 1826, approximately six months before the death of its benefactor. Franciscus Wilczek Sr. left 62.5 percent of the proceeds from the sale of one of his houses to his son-in-law (Jan Kanty Fryś), who was married to Franciscus’s daughter (Magdalena Fryś, maiden name Wilczek) to provide seed money for funeral expenses and religious services in the memory of the Wilczek family, to be arranged in perpetuity by the Fryś family and their descendants. Other instructions stipulated “weekly donations to beggars,” and a lump sum was to be paid to his loyal servant after Franciscus’s death. When, two generations later, the payments lapsed, the civil authorities of Galicia took descendants of the original trustees of the foundation to court for breach of contract. In 1875, an agreement was reached and a sum of money was deposited by Antonina Piwowarczyk (maiden name Fryś) to restore the intent of the benefactor’s will. The Foundation of Franciscus Wilczek Sr. was renamed the Fund for the Poor and was listed in the annual administrative books of Galicia (Schematismus) from 1883 to 1896. [The information on the life of Franciscus Wilczek Sr. was derived from the memoirs of his grandson, Piotr Fryś, written shortly after 1862. Copies of legal documents concerning Wilczek’s professional activities and the charitable foundation were provided by Mr. Andrzej Fryś of Andrychow, Poland (the great-great-grandson of Franciscus Wilczek Sr.).]

  22. Franciscus Wilczek Sr. had four sons and three daughters. Among them was Eleonora’s father, Ignatius (Ignaz) Wilczek (1792–1862), who was the magistrate assessor (ehrenbeisitzer) in Andrychow from about 1831 until 1855. During the Spring of Nations of 1848, he was elected to the national council that formed in Andrychow. Around 1855, Ignatius Wilczek became a merchant (mercator). He returned to public life, becoming the mayor of Andrychow (1861–1862). Ignatius died in office in 1862. His older brother, Eleonora’s uncle, was Franciscus (Franz) Wilczek Jr. (1783–1847), who was a teacher from 1808 to 1823 and then became a magistrate employee there from 1824 to 1831.

  Romualdus Wilczek of Andrychow, a contemporary of Eleonora, was born in 1830. He went to the gymnasium in Teschen (Cieszyn), where he studied for six years before moving to Vienna to study medicine (1848–1855). While at Joseph’s Academy there, he enlisted in the military (1852) and became a surgeon who served in many places throughout the empire.

  23. Provinzial Handbuch der Köngreiche Galizien and Lodomerien für Jahr 1846. Lemberg 1846; p. 50. Andreas Lösch worked with several members of the Winkler and Telesnicki families.

  24. While in Jaslo, Eleonora delivered another child, who did not survive (December 1, 1853).

  25. Provinzial-Handbuch des Krakauer Verwaltungs-Gebietes für das Jahr 1856. Krakau 1856; pp. 43–44. His position was listed as the county commissioner (bezirks-adjunkt).

  26. Romualdus Wilczek started his career in the military hospital in Vienna (1852). The string of assignments that followed brought him to Verona (in today’s Italy), Ratstatt (in today’s Germany), Brzezany (in today’s Ukraine), Carlsburg (in today’s Romania), and finally Budapest (in Hungary). There are two confirmed visits by Dr. Wilczek to his hometown; the first took place for a few months in 1855 during cholera epidemics (based on the military service record) and the second around 1862. The latter visit is documented in the memoirs of Piotr Fryś, who was seeking advice on how to obtain deferment from military service.

  Romualdus took part in two campaigns on the Italian front, in 1859 and 1866. In 1866, he received the Golden Cross of Merit with Crown, for his wartime service during the battle of Custoza, where Austrians prevailed over Italian forces. Dr. Wilczek’s last military post in the rank of major (stabsarzt) was in the garrison hospital in Budapest, Hungary (1881–1883).

  27. Szematyzm Krolestwa Galicyi i Lodomeryi z Wielkim Ksiestwem Krakowskim na Rok 1875. Lwów 1875; p. 42.

  28. Church records from the village Wielka Wies, dated from 1845, mention a Michael Regiec born in Hungary (unrelated to the Michaël Regiec described later in this narrative).

  In my search for any information about my line of Regiecs, I was looking for records from the village of Roztoka. The fact that at least six villages with that identical name could be found in a radius of approximately 40 miles around Nowy Sacz greatly complicated my efforts at first. The records of one village after another showed, disappointingly, no one with the name of Regiec. After many searches, the very last place on the list yielded long-awaited details, helping us to solve the mystery.

  29. Tatars settled mainly in the eastern parts of Poland and Lithuania between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Interestingly, reviewing the eighteenth-century church records from Bo
horodczany, I noticed a few converts to Catholicism from “Secta Mahometica,” which most likely represented Tatars living in the area. By the nineteenth century, most Tatars had become Polonized.

  30. Based on church records, I have estimated that Joseph was born in 1787 and Lucia in 1793. Lucia’s maiden name is not entirely clear. Some later church records identify her as a daughter of Michael Kaminski; other entries list her pre-marriage name as Jarmula. Nonetheless, both names were common around the village of Gierowa.

  A land and tax census was conducted in 1787 throughout the empire on the orders of Emperor Joseph II. A census document, dated September 14 of that year, provides detailed descriptions of the village of Janowice and the smaller hamlets of Gierowa and Podbrzeze. In the year of the census, no one with the name of Regiec lived there. Other details about Janowice quoted later in the text are from Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate Vertretenen Königreiche und Länder; Galizien; Wien 1907; vol. XII, p. 696.

  31. Michaël Regiec was 18 when the baptism of Laurentius Pajuz took place. The event occurred in 1836, before the official end of serfdom in Galicia in 1848.

  32. The parish books show one attempt by Catharina Regiec to record her signature, with misspellings of both her first and last names. How Michaël, the son of a shepherd, learned how to read and write is a mystery. I suspect, though I have no proof, that the young Michaël, while working on the estate of the Jordan family in the village of Roztoka, was educated alongside the master’s children.