Olenders

June 9, 2025 – Plock to Wloclawek – 56 kms – Apartament Rena

June 10, 2025 Wloclawek to Torun – 64 kms – J&J Apartments

June 11, 2025 – Torun – J&J Apartments

Ruth: We are mostly following marked bike paths on every surface imaginable from occasional deep sand!?*!? , hard packed clay and beautiful ribbons of asphalt. Our progress is slower and 50-60 kms is enough for me in a day.

Yesterday we passed the town of Słońsk, where my 5th great grandfather George Werner was born in 1740. The historical panel described a rich and long history reaching back to the 1-2nd century B.C., with the oldest traces of salt production by evaporation in Europe. It also mentions the Olender settlers that started to arrive in the mid-17th century .

Geneology, especially the way I do it, involves errors and speculation. However when the towns that the ancestors I have on my family tree continue to pop up in Olender settlements along the Vistula River, I think it’s fair to assume I have connections to this culture.

The term Olender has been used to describe two distinct waves of immigrants that over time combined and lived to form a distinct Olender culture. During the 16th and 17th centuries Mennonites from Frisia and Holland settled along the Vistula to escape religious persecution. Their settlements went down the river and included Gdansk/Danzig. They were later joined by larger numbers of German Lutherans, including members of my Gatzke and Werner families.

Their culture was distinct for its techniques of farming within a flood plain, their structure of self-government, and the religious tolerance embraced by the settlements. They were the wealthiest peasants in the region in spite of the challenges of farming the periodically flooded lands. “Olender” came to be understood by the connection to these communities, and not by a particular country of origin.

Toruń

Gordon: We spent two nights in the UNESCO designated medieval city of Toruń. The historical district is rather compact, but packed with a variety of architectural treasures. The churches in particular were notable for their vertical exaggeration and decorative brick work.

One of Poland’s most famous sons is Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born and raised in Toruń. He is renowned for his work that established that the Earth orbits the Sun. This is celebrated in the inscription on his statue in the main civic square, which says, in Latin, “he moved the Earth and stopped the Sun”.

Torun is also well known for its gingerbread, which its bakeries have been making since before I would have thought that ginger was even available in northern Europe. It is now prepared in a hundred different ways; we were particularly delighted with the ones that incorporated a bit of cayenne and were topped with a dab of chocolate.