My personal observations and notes during the flood
We live in a time of the triumph of human reason: in these very days mankind sent “automatic robots” to the planet Mars. At the same time the recent events have shown the weakness of human reason – the inability to foresee.
In the first days of July 1997 rains struck Silesia that brought drama to hundreds of thousands of people, including the inhabitants of our village. The rains, as scientists had warned, are the result of a careless treatment of planet Earth. Scientists have no doubt about this. Deforestation, predatory exploitation of natural resources, experiments with nature – all this takes its revenge in climatic anomalies, and there is no cruelty of nature in it, nor a Divine punishment, as others think (God does not punish a nation, he punishes the individual). Each of us knows that “only nature obeys the law”. We, the inhabitants of Folwark, too, are not without blame. Each of us has at some time left a plastic fertiliser sack in a field, thrown a plastic drinks bottle into the bushes, poured some fuel oil or oil, or slurry, into the lake. The water that entered our farmyards mercilessly showed how much oil and fuel had soaked into our yards – “truth and oil always rise to the surface”. The flood came as a collective surprise. Nature demonstrated its power and warns us to respect it!
6–7 July 1997 (Sunday, Monday)
We watched on our television screens as Głuchołazy was being flooded, we saw the dramas in Nysa, in Racibórz, in Czech Silesia.
Monday, 9 o’clock. In Głuchołazy all bridges were damaged, in part of the town the telephones are not working. The inhabitants of Jarnołtówek and Pokrzywna are evacuating northwards. 16:00. The river Opava has exceeded the alarm level by 2.5 m. But nobody yet thought that all this was also awaiting us, the inhabitants of Folwark.
8 July 1997 (Tuesday)
“Gazeta Wyborcza” reports under the headline “The flood is coming” … The flood wave on the Oder is only approaching, what awaits us? In Opole the absolutely highest recorded level, 604 cm, was reached by the Oder in August 1813. I look at the map: the lake in Folwark and the Oder have their normal level at a height of 152 m above sea level. Ul. Szkolna is at 160 m above sea level. A simple calculation shows that 2 m are still missing to reach my house. I am calm, I know that in 1813 the Oder was not yet regulated. The embankment was built in our area only in 1860, and it is almost 8 m high. It will hold! They predict that on Thursday morning the river may exceed this level; on Monday the level rose by 102 cm in three hours at Chałupki. And with us the water in the Oder is high, slowly approaching the embankment, the level in the lake is so-so, at ul. Stawowa one can still calmly cross the little bridge, life in the village goes on normally, we are preparing for the church fair in our parish (13.7.97).
9 July 1997 (Wednesday)
In the morning the water in the Oder reached the embankments and is rising. The news reaches us that around 7 in the morning the embankment broke at Boguszyce and water is flowing across the fields in our direction. Around 11 I was at the Oder and watch the current, calmly, without emotion. I go home, on ul. Lipowa there is already traffic, tractors are taking livestock to Wójtowa Wieś, Winów and other higher-lying places. Some from the threatened Przewrócie take their livestock to the farms on ul. Wiejska and carry more valuable things up to the attics. Around 15:00 the first wave spills across the fields already into Folwark. The residents behind the pond hurriedly take away the rest of the livestock. The road next to Kochanek (the village head) quickly becomes impassable. The last one (Gerard Kulik) with difficulty, reeling on his bicycle, gets through the swollen current flowing across the road. Tractors are still going (with difficulty and great risk) to save something. The water approaches the yard of Staffa and Chudala and slowly but steadily floods ul. Wiejska. Mr Wala waits on his veranda (he refuses the help offered by firefighters and residents, smokes cigarettes nervously and hopes that the water will come up to the steps and rise no further). At Józef Kornek’s the whole family hurriedly carries the work of their lives up to the attic and refuses evacuation. He asks them to come later, because he is still saving part of the furnishings. The fire brigade boat brings only his 83-year-old mother and the children. The parish priest arrives, traffic on ul. Wiejska grows, but its residents do not panic, they still do not believe the information that the water will rise by another 2 m.
The water on ul. Wiejska begins to slowly flow towards ul. Stawowa, where it runs into the lake. The residents of ul. Wiejska begin to plug the openings in their cellars with sacks so that the water does not flood them (some wall them up). Mrs Malikowa (ul. Wiejska 7) loads the remains of furniture and equipment onto trailers (and, irony of fate, I advise her to put the potted flowers higher on the little wall so that they are not flooded). At Wieszala’s there is bustle, they carry the daughter’s things (Suchan, ul. Wiejska 1) to their place, ul. Wiejska 3, and the farm equipment gathered in the yard they take to Langosz’s yard (ul. Wiejska 8). Mr Józef Kiwus (ul. Wiejska 2) has walled up the door to his flat to a height of about 30 cm (again I advise him to add another 30 cm and pile sandbags in front).
I am already returning towards the chapel on a tractor with Tadeusz Wieszala, because the water is flowing in a broad stream across the road into Kasperek’s garden (ul. Wiejska 4). I have no watch, perhaps 15 minutes had passed since I walked dry-shod to Kiwus’s and returned on a tractor. I stayed a moment longer with Tadeusz (they are still carrying things). The water begins to flood Malik’s flat – I see tears in eyes and helplessness. The residents of the even-numbered side of ul. Wiejska begin to carry their things hurriedly up to the attics and lead the livestock higher. Ul. Wiejska is slowly flooded (perhaps an hour has passed). We “admire” how the water carries off the plastic tunnels in the gardens, how the panes in the greenhouse at Szmechta’s crack. Stanisław Murowski got angry because some tractor races from the Oder side and a wave of water spills over the kerb and splashed the freshly walled-up cellar window. Evacuation of Józef Kornek and his wife at 9 in the evening.
The water begins to flood the yards, I am at Stanisław Murowski’s, we are still sitting on the bench and debating in front of the steps leading to the flat. The water keeps rising, I comfort him that the level will settle in a moment. I go home. It is getting grey, traffic grows, we all wait for the water level to stabilise. The police appear and appeal to the residents of ul. Szkolna to start preparing to leave their houses, because the main wave is yet to come. Nobody believes it, although everyone is very frightened. There is no panic, great nervousness, some women cry because they begin to realise what is starting to happen, others joke (no need to water the gardens). It is already dark, perhaps 11 pm, perhaps later. Nobody thinks of sleep, because the water keeps rising. The residents of ul. Wiejska save what can still be carried out (at Laksy’s they have to knock down a wall to evacuate with the livestock). I am terribly tired although I have done nothing so far, I gawped like many others. I see that many “drowning people” are dropping from exhaustion and only wait for the moment when the level stabilises. All life has moved to ul. Szkolna.
10 July 1997 (Thursday, after midnight)
I go to lie down. I ask once more who wants to sleep at our place. I have 2 free rooms, no takers. I lay down and switched on the radio “Opole”, which broadcasts announcements without a break; television broadcasts too, but the information is so unbelievable – improbable – and, worst of all, one piece of information contradicts another. I have the impression that only our Folwark is being flooded, I try to sleep and cannot. An announcement is made that the streets of Opole will be flooded to 3 to 4 m, that residents should prepare to leave their houses (Pasieka island, Zaodrze, ul. Koszyka). I get up, go downstairs to check the water level, which keeps rising. From the Opole side the water level is approaching ul. Szkolna dangerously. That’s it, everything becomes clear – the water has reached the embankments at Winów, and there is no outflow there, with us it begins to pile up. How high? I am afraid!
It is probably already after midnight. Jasiu Pawleta appears and says that he is returning from Opole and nothing is happening there, no alarm, people are sleeping peacefully, everything is normal, the water is high but there is no movement. I do not believe it. We get into his car and drive. Beyond Winów we turn to the lake “Gemeinde”, there stand an excavator and two cars, the drivers are sleeping in the cars, Jasio reverses the car, we drive on. Behind the church in Szczepanowice we turn into ul. Krapkowicka, then in the direction of SDH beyond the “Oder” we stop at ul. Spychalskiego, we climb the embankment and nothing, a few firefighters are watching whether water is seeping through the dam, several others are calmly filling sandbags next to it. About 1.3 m are missing to the top level before it would overflow. We drive on to the Rondo, calm, very little traffic on the streets, we turn back and return home along ul. Prószkowska. I am a little calmer, but I do not go to sleep any more.
Why is there no alarm in Opole? Why are there no sirens to wake the inhabitants of the left bank of the Oder, after all what is happening in Folwark will lead to the breaking of the embankments, and that means that the whole of Zaodrze will be flooded. Perhaps we here in Folwark are worrying too much, and at any moment the level will settle and then slowly begin to fall. I do not know, nobody knows!
The water keeps rising, ul. Szkolna from the Opole side is flooded more and more (the level rises by about 20 cm per hour). It begins to approach the house of Józef Iwański. Now the residents of ul. Szkolna start to get nervous. Dawn is breaking, you can see how high the water is on ul. Wiejska. Any moment the ground-floor windows will be flooded (about 10 cm is still visible) at Józef Kornek’s (behind the pond). I do not know what time it was, but the news reached us that the embankments in Opole have broken and the water is flooding Wójtowa Wieś and the city. My God, what relief! Now perhaps the water will begin to fall. None of us thought of the tragedy that is beginning there, after all they will be more surprised than we were, it is still night, with us it began in the afternoon, and how much drama there was. But that is how a human is, he thinks only of himself, another’s wound does not hurt him. Some, however, came to their senses – my cattle is in Wójtowa Wieś, after all. We no longer have any communication, the telephones have stopped working, there is no police, the fire brigade has also got lost somewhere. What will happen if an ambulance has to be called.
The water keeps rising, I begin to be afraid, I take out a spirit level and measure how many metres are missing to Szkolna 12, about 1.7 m! Radio announcements say that another 2 m wave (the last one) is coming! I do not know what time it was, we get into the car and drive towards Opole to see what the situation is there. Beyond Winów water flows across the road, further on the drive ends. On the right side of the road towards the Oder, in Winów all the houses are flooded. I look, an armchair is floating by, on it a few things and some plastic bag.
We return, drive in the direction of Chrzowice, beyond Folwark we look at a “sea”. Mr Wala’s house can be seen only a few centimetres, Kochanek flooded up to the roof, I take a few photographs, perhaps they will turn out. All the way to Groszowice only water is visible – a “sea”, a multitude of various things floats with the current. We return home. Noon is approaching, the telephones have long not been working, if only nobody falls ill, if only there is no accident, because an ambulance cannot get through, and helicopters are rescuing the people of Opole from the roofs. The worst is probably still ahead of us. The water seems to have stabilised, every half hour I check its level, I am calmer. But we wait for the second wave. We begin to organise ourselves, someone thought of sandwiches, tea, there is coffee (Agnieszka Chudalowa from ul. Lipowa). Mrs Krysia distributes meal vouchers to the affected. Towards evening fodder for the livestock is brought from Prószków (Mr Ochota from Górki), “LIFE” on ul. Szkolna begins to return to normal. We listen to the radio announcements, wait, wait and wait. The first “sightseeing tourists” begin to appear, families also arrive to see the affected and the unaffected, worried by the lack of information about Folwark. Radio “Opole” reports what is happening in Opole, there is no news about our tragedy, helicopters fly only over us, perhaps from above it does not look so bad?
11 July 1997 (Friday)
The water level is unchanged. No communication, we have bread and for now our own supplies. Agnieszka Chudala and Danuta Zmarzły make breakfast from private supplies. The municipal office finances lunches at “Maja’s”. Spontaneously strangers bring various products, it looks as if we shall somehow survive. We wait, the water level changes (rises or falls by 2–3 cm). We organise a watch, radio announcements report looters in inflatable boats.
12 July 1997 (Saturday)
In the evening around 9 o’clock the embankment at Winów (Gemeinde) is blown up. Two terrible bangs can be heard. Hope that the water will at last begin to fall. The help with food is good, we have more and more gifts. In the evening after Mass (the fair Mass said by our Janek) we have at “Maja’s” a cake baked by Agnieszka and the ladies from ul. Szkolna. Again very many “tourists” (whole families). We wait. For the parish priest I draw up a list of those flooded. The list will be completed in the following days, because today I lack data.
13 July 1997 (church fair Sunday)
Agnieszka Chudalowa prepared breakfast on the “market square”. Few went to the parish for the fair Mass. The “life” of all the inhabitants has moved to the “Market”, the crossing of ul. Lipowa – Szkolna, here one can have a bite and something to drink. A great many tourists “visit” us. The mayor is here with his wife (whom the inhabitants of Folwark do not know, so she has to listen to complaints about her husband). Around 15:00 Janek Smolin (Kola) sets off with colleagues for Przewrócie, as he gets into the boat he has an epileptic fit, we call the ambulance by the mobile phone of a chance “sightseeing tourist” (luckily, because there is no other connection). The mayor, Bernard Lelek, talks with the fire brigade in Prószków, which contacts the ambulance. After 15 minutes the sick man gets up, further help is unnecessary, a nurse called by Mr Reiner Kochanek arrives, a few minutes later the ambulance arrives (they came via Prószków), we explain the situation, so they leave. Many on the western side of ul. Wiejska enter their yards through the barns and begin the first clearing up. 21:45: the water level has fallen by 197 cm. Ul. Wiejska is still flooded along its entire length. Antoni Smolin rings the bell in the chapel in the evening around 18:00. Life goes on at ul. Szkolna – Lipowa by the chapel of 1675. Our “Watch” makes its first “round”.
14 July 1997 (Monday)
Agnieszka Chudala and Danuta Zmarzły have already prepared breakfast (for now still from private supplies). There is bread, coffee, tea, a few sandwiches, nobody is hungry. 9:00 water level (minus 2.19), so in 10 hours it has fallen by only 22 cm. Very slowly! They are starting to get nervous! The first gifts from people of good will in the parish arrive. From the parish priest we received the church-fair collection (107,450,410 old złoty + 50 million from our Caritas, together we have 157 million old złoty) – A GREAT DEAL! A committee meets (Agnieszka Chudala, Danuta Zmarzły, Czura Rozwita) and divides up the first relief for the affected. We fix 50 new złoty (500,000 old) for each affected person, regardless of property status and degree of flooding. The exception is the Kozłowski family, who spent the first private relief on alcohol (already on Saturday). Likewise Eryk Kornek, who from Saturday until today, as I write on 16 July 1997, has not yet sobered up. From this money the Kozłowskis’ debt at the shop of 90 złoty was settled and 50 złoty deducted from the private relief. It was decided that any future relief would not be paid to them in cash (the committee will cover the cost of buying food at the shop). Mr Żur and Hubert Kiwus waived the relief (the payment list with signatures is with Mrs Rozwita, who looks after the money). Disinfectants are brought, the first from Przewrócie view their flooded houses from boats. 15:30 water level (minus 2.27, that is 8 cm since 9 o’clock).
A macabre piece of news arrives: in Opole a coffin with a corpse was fished out of the Oder, perhaps this is another rumour? 18:30 (water level minus 2.33 cm from the maximum flood level). We are relatively organised, everyone knows where to look for what and whom. We have something to eat and drink. We top up the household supplies. Gifts keep coming (decidedly too much clothing and too little cleaning products, gloves, rubber boots, brushes, powders). The municipality has promised to deliver.
15 July 1997 (Tuesday)
Breakfast in the morning as usual, we already have preserves, sausage from Górki that the parish priest brought from the Baron. The residents of ul. Wiejska enter their flooded houses and begin the first clearing up (it looks terrible there, they say), there is a shortage of cleaning products, rubber boots, gloves, disinfectants. 15:00, the municipal utility from Prószków brought 1 tonne of lime from Górażdże. 15:30 the parish priest sent 120 kg of soap (paste), brought by Mr Sadło from Chrząszczyce. 15:45 from the municipal office they bring cleaning products (Domestos, 25 bottles) and 8 pairs of rubber boots. 16:00 at Reiner Kochanek’s the hay has heated up, there is a danger of fire, so he throws it out and is poisoned by the gases (methane). We call for help, the fire brigade and a few young men help in turns (15 minutes each) to remove the danger. Everything ends happily. 18:30 two vans (Żuk) bring gifts from the inhabitants of Domecko (clothes, food, grain, powders). I can read in their eyes that they do it sincerely, not for show, they are embarrassed when I thank them. 19:00 a great feast at MAJA’s restaurant. All inhabitants are invited to cake and church-fair pastry from Złotniki. A delegation of ladies from Złotniki brought, besides cake and coffee, a full delivery van of garden produce (lettuce, potatoes, cauliflowers and many others). From the Baron in Górki again a delivery of black pudding, I do not even know who brought it. Ul. Wiejska is partly dry (from Murowski’s to Cygan’s). The enormity of the losses is already visible. I check the DFK building, it was flooded exactly to the height of the window sill. The chapel (measured from the base) to a height of 205 cm. Traffic on ul. Szkolna is lighter. Most of the flood victims have returned to their houses and throw the work of their lives out into the yards, then load it onto wheelbarrows and bring it to ul. Szkolna to the container. Nobody has been vaccinated yet, I am afraid of disease, nobody thinks that the water is heavily contaminated. In the afternoon the information arrives that one can go to be vaccinated, there is vaccine, there are cleaning products, there are rubber boots, few gloves.
16 July 1997 (Wednesday) – a week already behind us
In the morning two persons at the “Market”, Gerhard Kurpierz and Piotr Smolin (pensioners), the rest are already working. We have help with cleaning from Górki. The army brings more rubber boots, 14 pairs. Some other help arrives, but I do not know from where, because they drove straight to the chapel. Our brave firefighters, who have been with us from the beginning, have a lot to do today, Wiejska is almost without water already. Around 12 o’clock I make a round. Water still from Kania’s, from the south, and from the north side to Wieszala’s. Everywhere they are already working at full steam. The fire brigade, residents and ladies (and exceptionally young girls) from Górki, great traffic now on ul. Wiejska, through the water one also sees great work at Kornek’s behind the Pond and in Przewrócie. I look at every house from inside, a tragedy for its inhabitants. After all nothing can be used, the furniture is crumbling (sawdust, of course), the upholstery soaked with contaminated dirty water, walls to be re-plastered, wooden floors warped, wainscoting too. Everybody carries everything out onto trailers without looking back to see whether anything should be left. This cannot be left, it must be burned as quickly as possible to prevent some plague. Clothes, household equipment, furniture, floors, wallpaper, carpets, potted flowers (I saw Christmas decorations), lamps, broken crockery, EVERYTHING they have to throw out, WHAT REMAINS ARE BARE, WET, STINKING, DIRTY, CRACKED WALLS. Warped windows, warped doors (first they could not be opened, and now not closed). The “builder” will say: this is the so-called shell state of the building (if it were clean and dry). Gardens destroyed, fences broken, everywhere full of rubbish from the whole course of the Oder (we have a lot of wood – foreign – ours floated off towards the sea). That is enough for today, too many terrible sights. The water in the lake is still about 2 m above its normal level.
17 July 1997 (Thursday)
A representative of the German Minority brings 1000 new złoty collected privately for the flood victims. The parish priest is here with gifts, soap (on the bars of soap, written with felt pen “WE LOVE YOU”, “WE FEEL FOR YOU VERY MUCH”). I ask Krysia to record it on video! At Krysia’s house, in the group (the mayor Bernard Lelek, parish priest Fr Dr Krystian, Krystyna Kiełbasa from the municipal office and I) we decide the course of further help. The municipality has no more money for lunches (and we also have firefighters and helpers from neighbouring villages). The parish priest proposes to finance it from Caritas funds – agreed. Yesterday there was a session of the Sejm. Comments on that – words fail. Most deputies have no idea what is happening here in Silesia. Tragic, they are already conducting an election campaign!! This is plain, vulgar political propaganda.
Wiktor Iwański got a razor blade from the village head, but still walks around unshaven. The matter of the boards at J. Kasperek’s was cleared up, Rozkosz from Boguszyce came and saw them in the attic at Langosz’s. At midday I cross by boat to Przewrócie, with Krysia and the children (Walecko). Krysia “films”, I pay a “visit” to every “farm”. Everyone shows me their houses after the flood has passed. Yesterday I toured ul. Wiejska – I saw horrors. Here one can get only by boat, but the destruction is more legible and much greater than on ul. Wiejska (with exceptions: Kochanek, Wala, Malik, Suchan, Wieszala, Kiwus, Kasperek – they had no place to retreat to, others could flee through their barns to ul. Szkolna). Here one can see exactly what the elements are capable of. On the fields behind the houses I counted three large trailers on “roofs”. Overturned agricultural machines, torn-out gates, collapsed walls, huge heaps of furniture and (various) equipment mixed with manure. Ludwik Kochanek guides me through his “flat” (he is running the central heating to dry the walls faster), everywhere cracked panes, torn-out doors. I see cracked panes at others’ too. Józef Kornek spreads on a trailer the manure they gathered in the yard and in the flat (his son loads). At Kulik’s and Walecki’s they wash the tableware that was miraculously saved. Humour accompanies despair: (Oti Kulikowa) shows me a hen and a cat that survived the flood in the house and were rescued today. Everywhere a terrible stench and dreadful destruction.
I return from the island of Przewrócie to the mainland. Here I learn (it is 17:00) that the second wave is coming. The radio reports rainfall in the southern part of Silesia, that we should prepare for evacuation again. Calmly I inform everyone to stop the clearing-up work and to prepare for the next wave. In Przewrócie panic breaks out and everyone returns hurriedly to the mainland. Then an announcement says that it is only now starting to rain and the flood wave will come in 24 hours and will be smaller. Nobody feels like clearing up any more. We wait. Rain starts to fall. General despair and discouragement about everything. People disperse to their homes. The fire brigade is here, they have radio communication – they promised to keep watch until morning. We go to sleep.
18 July 1997 (Friday) – day of national mourning
During the flood in the country (since the beginning) more than 40 people have died. It is raining, at times heavily. In the morning the inhabitants gather on Szkolna, there are a few helpers from Górki (yesterday they were from Złotniki). Representatives of the municipality are here, they want a list of the “drowned” (allocation of fodder). We have the first misunderstandings over the distribution, we make an exact inventory of the livestock that was saved – we suspend the distribution of fodder. 14:00: we have the first aid transport from Germany (two cars). Radio ERFT (VHF 105.8, VHF 91.4) brings us gifts from its listeners. They broadcast an appeal on their radio and today they arrived, bringing: bedding, cleaning products, food, sweets for the children, nutritional supplements and many other things (even toys for children). We thank you! Krysia went with them to lunch at “Maja’s”. The gifts were delivered by: Mr Herbert Sitatzki, Henryk Josek, Brygida Kondziela. We thank you!!!
The village head Józef Kochanek handed me a fax sent from Opole to the municipal office in Prószków (handwritten). For posterity I copy it word for word:
Opole, 18.07.97 – FAX
To the Chairman of the Municipal Flood Team in Prószków
You are informed that because of the concentration of forces and resources on the repair of the embankments in the area of Winów, Opole and Metalchem, the embankments in your area will not be repaired. Do what you can on your own. The above is announced on the instruction of the Provincial Flood Committee in Opole.
Illegible stamp and illegible signature (only legible: Bolesław or Przemysław Skiba).
What can one say to such information!? After all we have no experience at all in this field. If at least they had written: organise people, we, the Provincial Flood Committee, will send an experienced army sapper or some other specialist in building embankments, then we could somehow save ourselves, but in this situation!? Conclusion: they have forgotten the SILESIANS again. On Polsat television they say that a new wave awaits us tomorrow, it is 16:00. It is still raining. It no longer stinks so much. 17:15, I was on Wiejska, I met nobody, in Przewrócie nobody is to be seen either, the water in the little gardens is still at 3/4. From the Opole side one hears the work of heavy equipment, probably they are building a new embankment. I return home, it is still raining. 17:45 live on television the mayor of Opole informs that “this time the people of Opole will be warned in time and the wave will not take us by surprise”. And we, the inhabitants of Folwark? A moment ago the police were here with an announcement.
19 July 1997 (Saturday)
The water level does not change, the clearing-up work is interrupted, everyone waits for the next wave that is being announced. It is still raining, at times heavily. The authorities and those responsible for water management in Silesia seem to be beginning to think and are discharging water from the reservoirs properly. This time – perhaps – there will not be such a tragedy when the announced wave comes. At 19:00 we have another meeting in the bar (coffee and cake from Złotniki). Dr Lewicka is present and instructs the residents how to protect themselves from an epidemic of typhus, typhoid fever, salmonella (there is a great danger). Mrs Róża from Złotniki arrived late and brought an elderly couple from Hamm (Germany) who, after her telephone information about our situation, had spontaneously organised a collection of money and gifts for our village.
The gifts were collected by the scout troop “Don Bosco” of the DPSG in Hamm, and were brought by Mr and Mrs Maria and Heiner Ernst. They brought in cash 2800 DM and rubber boots, disinfectants and other chemicals for 1000 DM. In their home town they opened a special account for this purpose, into which – they hope – further gifts will begin to flow (they also brought, taped to a piece of paper, 15 DM from a 14-year-old girl, her savings from her piggy bank). It was a very moving evening!
20 July 1997 (Sunday)
It is not raining, but dark clouds hang over us. The water level has not changed since yesterday. 8:30 – as usual – Mass (today in the intention of Gerard Kurpierz on the occasion of his 70th birthday). The Mass was said by a Franciscan who is standing in for our parish priest, who is in Germany. Because our chapel is out of use (a depot for flood gifts), the Mass was said in the “Świętkownia”, in front of the painting of Our Lady of Częstochowa, moved from the chapel after the flood to dry.
21 July 1997 (Monday)
The DFK of Domecko brought 1535 złoty and 10 DM. In the morning a pilgrimage took place to Polska Nowa Wieś, led by the deputy parish priest – a Franciscan. It rains with breaks. Water unchanged, gardens flooded. We wait for the announced wave. 21:00 – the wave has not yet come.
22 July 1997 (Tuesday)
The water rises very slowly, almost invisibly. It is no longer raining. They announce, however, the coming of the wave. In the evening I drove with the police to Winów to check a rumour (that they are blocking the outflow for our water into the Oder). I checked – untrue, after rising by another 1 m the water will begin to flow into the Oder at the height of the Winów canal.
23 July 1997 (Wednesday)
In the morning weather like summer at this time of year. The water slowly but steadily floods – from the southern side of Folwark – ul. Wiejska. In the evening around 20:30 the water next to Murowski’s flows in a fairly broad stream from ul. Wiejska into the pond, whose water has also reached ul. Wiejska. We all wait for further developments (some military vehicle came with civilians and a few firefighters, looked around and left). The authorities are now being over-cautious.
Important announcement for the inhabitants of Folwark. 18:15, the village head is here with information: at today’s session it was decided and resolved as follows:
- Per head of family 300 (new) złoty will be paid out.
- For each family member 100 złoty will be paid out.
- Remission of the “Crus” for 1997 and 1998 (they will not have to pay).
- The municipal office will not send payment demands – tax.
- The municipal office covers the water consumption costs of the flooded areas.
Record of the handing over of gifts for the flood victims of Folwark
- 1. Daninów Wola – 55 sacks (13 grain, 11 potatoes)
- 2. Bochlewo – grain 23 sacks, 24 sacks of potatoes
- 3. Władzimirów – 13 sacks of grain, 4 sacks of potatoes
- 4. Kazimierz Biskupi – 16 sacks of potatoes, 17 sacks of grain, 6 packets of washing powder
- 5. Komorów – 950 kg grain, 400 kg potatoes
- 6. Anielewo – 2410 kg grain, 400 kg potatoes
- 7. Cząstków – 1650 kg grain, 850 kg potatoes
- 8. Tokarki – 1000 kg grain
- 9. Dobrosołów – 2150 kg grain, 1150 kg potatoes + 1 trailer of hay
In total 8160 kg of grain, 2800 kg of potatoes.
Village Dobrosołowo, municipality Kazimierz Biskupi. Transport: company “Tojan”, Henryk Durkiewicz, Konin. Driver: Józef Kawecki. The gifts were unloaded by inhabitants of Folwark at the corner of ul. Szkolna – Lipowa. Distribution according to the list drawn up by the civic committee formed by the flood victims. Supervised by Rudolf Zmarzły. Folwark, September 1997.
Photographs
