Reunion for Second Generation Polish Americans

(Polish Saturday School)

(From Andy Golebiowski)

Broadway Fillmore has been home to immigrants for over 150 years. We are all quite familiar with the waves of Polish people who built the neighborhood around the turn of the 20th century. There was a later, smaller wave of people who started arriving in the late 1940s and 1950s. These were mostly survivors of Nazi and Soviet labor and concentration camps who found refuge in the United States as Displaced Persons and immigrants. They built new lives quietly, rarely telling their stories of personal and family tragedies. They were busy building new families.

Now, their descendants have decided to come together as a “2nd Generationers Group”. All children and grandchildren of Polish immigrants who arrived in the United States soon after WWII to come together to share some oplatek, sing a koleda or two, have a snack and get to know each other again.

The party will take place on Sunday, December 30 at 3pm at the Polish Army Veterans’ Post at 617 Fillmore Ave. in Buffalo.

Some of these kids know each other from Polish Saturday School, Polish scouts, a dance group or simply from community and family gatherings, most of which took place in Broadway-Fillmore. Sunday’s event will provide an opportunity for a reunion of sorts, and a chance to get to know others who fall in the same category of descendants of post WWII immigrants.

There has been much interest lately among the descendents of those who ended up in the U.S. after surviving Nazi and Soviet camps or other tragedies.

The group would like to keep our parents’ and grandparents’ stories alive, learn more about them and share our common language as children of immigrants.

For more information, please contact Andy Golebiowski at:
andywbuffalo@yahoo.com