Agata Tumiłowicz-Mazur
@agatumilowicz.bsky.social
Scholar & Writer ✍🏻
Ph.D. NYU Comparative Literature
I write on archive, nature, memory, and layers of Polish, Jewish and German heritage in my native Lower Silesia.
Words in The Brooklyn Rail, Triangle House Review, CEU Review of Books, Apofenie, etc
Ph.D. NYU Comparative Literature
I write on archive, nature, memory, and layers of Polish, Jewish and German heritage in my native Lower Silesia.
Words in The Brooklyn Rail, Triangle House Review, CEU Review of Books, Apofenie, etc
What I still can’t get over, though, are the repeated pleas for memory. Many poems are accompanied by a form of the inscription "Please, remember me." And sure, we might just brush it off as not being directed at the current reader, but I can’t help feeling suddenly responsible.
November 27, 2025 at 10:54 AM
What I still can’t get over, though, are the repeated pleas for memory. Many poems are accompanied by a form of the inscription "Please, remember me." And sure, we might just brush it off as not being directed at the current reader, but I can’t help feeling suddenly responsible.
And honestly, it takes me ages to decipher this. But it’s so beautiful, just take a look at it:
November 27, 2025 at 10:54 AM
And honestly, it takes me ages to decipher this. But it’s so beautiful, just take a look at it:
Thus Mania was one of those Poles who moved West from the Eastern Borderlands – Kresy. Her notebook - and especially, the choice of poems - reflects the gloom of World War I but also, houses her friends' beautiful calligraphy. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
November 27, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Thus Mania was one of those Poles who moved West from the Eastern Borderlands – Kresy. Her notebook - and especially, the choice of poems - reflects the gloom of World War I but also, houses her friends' beautiful calligraphy. I’ve never seen anything like that before.
It's not a journal, but a notebook filled with Polish poems, meticulously copied by Mania's friends. The first notes were entered in 1917 in Drohobych (now Ukraine), then Mania and her notebook traveled to Sambor and Przemyśl. I found it 100 years later in Lower Silesia.
November 27, 2025 at 10:54 AM
It's not a journal, but a notebook filled with Polish poems, meticulously copied by Mania's friends. The first notes were entered in 1917 in Drohobych (now Ukraine), then Mania and her notebook traveled to Sambor and Przemyśl. I found it 100 years later in Lower Silesia.
Along with the German objects we found in our attic, there was this notebook, a remnant of a Polish settler.
I don't know who Mania, its owner, was, but she must have lived in my house. So we are, in some way, connected.
I don't know who Mania, its owner, was, but she must have lived in my house. So we are, in some way, connected.
November 27, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Along with the German objects we found in our attic, there was this notebook, a remnant of a Polish settler.
I don't know who Mania, its owner, was, but she must have lived in my house. So we are, in some way, connected.
I don't know who Mania, its owner, was, but she must have lived in my house. So we are, in some way, connected.
Still thinking about that moment when I walked in to this “secret bathroom” and gasped.
I stumbled upon it in my research some time ago and couldn’t believe there are still places like that around, that look literally frozen in time.
Oh, and the mirror is almost 200 years old.
I stumbled upon it in my research some time ago and couldn’t believe there are still places like that around, that look literally frozen in time.
Oh, and the mirror is almost 200 years old.
November 23, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Still thinking about that moment when I walked in to this “secret bathroom” and gasped.
I stumbled upon it in my research some time ago and couldn’t believe there are still places like that around, that look literally frozen in time.
Oh, and the mirror is almost 200 years old.
I stumbled upon it in my research some time ago and couldn’t believe there are still places like that around, that look literally frozen in time.
Oh, and the mirror is almost 200 years old.
A whole separate chapter could be written about absences scattered across Lower Silesia’s public spaces. Something was written there once, I’m sure, but I might never know what it was. Glaring lacuna is staring back at me.
November 18, 2025 at 4:10 PM
A whole separate chapter could be written about absences scattered across Lower Silesia’s public spaces. Something was written there once, I’m sure, but I might never know what it was. Glaring lacuna is staring back at me.
I know, I know I probably just caught it in the midst of renovation, but in this land of doubles I couldn’t help but smile a little. It’s like a local dilemma embodied - to uncover the past and let it be seen or to let it be, out of sight, shrouded in the layers of dust?
November 17, 2025 at 4:27 PM
I know, I know I probably just caught it in the midst of renovation, but in this land of doubles I couldn’t help but smile a little. It’s like a local dilemma embodied - to uncover the past and let it be seen or to let it be, out of sight, shrouded in the layers of dust?
Today in the category of disappearing animals…
November 16, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Today in the category of disappearing animals…
The owner of this tavern in Karpacz told me a story how one day “something started coming out from underneath the old paint”, he then took the rag and started cleaning it…to find this old painting. Its look after the “renovation” is a bit problematic but the vibe is what counts (💯 Lower Silesian.)
November 13, 2025 at 12:18 PM
The owner of this tavern in Karpacz told me a story how one day “something started coming out from underneath the old paint”, he then took the rag and started cleaning it…to find this old painting. Its look after the “renovation” is a bit problematic but the vibe is what counts (💯 Lower Silesian.)
Polish flag’s waved not to confuse passersby 😉
or
„We’re still here” thought a Pole and a German, simultaneously, looking at this house.
or
„We’re still here” thought a Pole and a German, simultaneously, looking at this house.
November 5, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Polish flag’s waved not to confuse passersby 😉
or
„We’re still here” thought a Pole and a German, simultaneously, looking at this house.
or
„We’re still here” thought a Pole and a German, simultaneously, looking at this house.
Two types of Lower Silesian owls, at your service. The second one was clearly pointing to something, now it’s holding an empty plaque, a common form of absence around here, inscribed into the fabric of the town.
November 5, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Two types of Lower Silesian owls, at your service. The second one was clearly pointing to something, now it’s holding an empty plaque, a common form of absence around here, inscribed into the fabric of the town.
When it’s sunny but in November 🤷🏼♀️
November 4, 2025 at 2:19 PM
When it’s sunny but in November 🤷🏼♀️
In the world of doubles, here’s my latest obsession - two different house numbers 🥲 might create a separate series of it, I’m not sure, but they are certainly not the easiest to spot. It’s as if the two addresses, the one from the past and the present, manage to somehow coexist.
November 4, 2025 at 11:19 AM
In the world of doubles, here’s my latest obsession - two different house numbers 🥲 might create a separate series of it, I’m not sure, but they are certainly not the easiest to spot. It’s as if the two addresses, the one from the past and the present, manage to somehow coexist.
Blind windows, not very functional, or maybe functional, after all, and able to see…? Both.
November 3, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Blind windows, not very functional, or maybe functional, after all, and able to see…? Both.
I mean it, sometimes you *really* have to look hard.
November 1, 2025 at 10:31 AM
I mean it, sometimes you *really* have to look hard.
The lettering on the stones is harder and harder to read while the graves, in the absence of their caretakers, get gradually overgrown. Sometimes the only hint of a German grave are the Art Nouveau fences surrounding the plots.
November 1, 2025 at 10:20 AM
The lettering on the stones is harder and harder to read while the graves, in the absence of their caretakers, get gradually overgrown. Sometimes the only hint of a German grave are the Art Nouveau fences surrounding the plots.
As for the other German graves, it's still possible to find some but you need to look for them. They're usually hiding behind the Polish ones as if lurking. But in fact, they're just there like the shadows of a bygone reality, reminding you about the layers the region is built on.
November 1, 2025 at 10:08 AM
As for the other German graves, it's still possible to find some but you need to look for them. They're usually hiding behind the Polish ones as if lurking. But in fact, they're just there like the shadows of a bygone reality, reminding you about the layers the region is built on.
Another example, at a different local cemetery.
Eugen Füllner was the head of the paper machine factory and a great social activist who cared greatly about his employees. Entangling the past and present, current employees of the paper company still take care of his grave today.
Eugen Füllner was the head of the paper machine factory and a great social activist who cared greatly about his employees. Entangling the past and present, current employees of the paper company still take care of his grave today.
November 1, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Another example, at a different local cemetery.
Eugen Füllner was the head of the paper machine factory and a great social activist who cared greatly about his employees. Entangling the past and present, current employees of the paper company still take care of his grave today.
Eugen Füllner was the head of the paper machine factory and a great social activist who cared greatly about his employees. Entangling the past and present, current employees of the paper company still take care of his grave today.
Uh-oh, his grave was also facing the other way, but! Props for the local decision-makers to mark this place as a regional landmark.
As you can see, it's very tight in there.
As you can see, it's very tight in there.
November 1, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Uh-oh, his grave was also facing the other way, but! Props for the local decision-makers to mark this place as a regional landmark.
As you can see, it's very tight in there.
As you can see, it's very tight in there.
One sure way for the grave to survive was its...prominence. If the deceased happened to be an important person for the region – there's a chance his memory is still tangible.
Hugo Seydel, for instance, was the founder of a local museum and an activist of the Karkonosze Society.
Hugo Seydel, for instance, was the founder of a local museum and an activist of the Karkonosze Society.
November 1, 2025 at 10:01 AM
One sure way for the grave to survive was its...prominence. If the deceased happened to be an important person for the region – there's a chance his memory is still tangible.
Hugo Seydel, for instance, was the founder of a local museum and an activist of the Karkonosze Society.
Hugo Seydel, for instance, was the founder of a local museum and an activist of the Karkonosze Society.
In my town, the oldest surviving cemetery (established in 1874) is an example of such "adaptation." The Polish newcomers started to bury their dead in the formerly German cemeteries but gradually they needed more and more space, so more and more German graves were being removed.
November 1, 2025 at 10:01 AM
In my town, the oldest surviving cemetery (established in 1874) is an example of such "adaptation." The Polish newcomers started to bury their dead in the formerly German cemeteries but gradually they needed more and more space, so more and more German graves were being removed.
If cemeteries create a community of both the living and the dead, what happens when the living get displaced?
Case in point: German cemeteries in the PL "Recovered Lands."
All Saints' Day is a good day to reflect on what happens to memory in the absence of those who remember.
🧵(not an easy read)
Case in point: German cemeteries in the PL "Recovered Lands."
All Saints' Day is a good day to reflect on what happens to memory in the absence of those who remember.
🧵(not an easy read)
November 1, 2025 at 10:01 AM
If cemeteries create a community of both the living and the dead, what happens when the living get displaced?
Case in point: German cemeteries in the PL "Recovered Lands."
All Saints' Day is a good day to reflect on what happens to memory in the absence of those who remember.
🧵(not an easy read)
Case in point: German cemeteries in the PL "Recovered Lands."
All Saints' Day is a good day to reflect on what happens to memory in the absence of those who remember.
🧵(not an easy read)
I feel like I’ve shared letter boxes already but because I came across two more today, here they are. A bit redundant these days but kept almost intact nevertheless.
October 28, 2025 at 1:17 PM
I feel like I’ve shared letter boxes already but because I came across two more today, here they are. A bit redundant these days but kept almost intact nevertheless.
Just the other day, my mom takes this table runner out from our wardrobe and says „oh, and this one is from the Germans, too!”
80 years later I STILL find things from the previous inhabitants, randomly scattered around. And it’s got a face.
I guess this story never ends.
80 years later I STILL find things from the previous inhabitants, randomly scattered around. And it’s got a face.
I guess this story never ends.
October 26, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Just the other day, my mom takes this table runner out from our wardrobe and says „oh, and this one is from the Germans, too!”
80 years later I STILL find things from the previous inhabitants, randomly scattered around. And it’s got a face.
I guess this story never ends.
80 years later I STILL find things from the previous inhabitants, randomly scattered around. And it’s got a face.
I guess this story never ends.