Well, in Gizyn I immediately went around some
places and began asking people about von Borcke.
Nobody heard of him. Gizyn is very small and it was
not hard to stop and ask people about the stuff. Von
Borcke had a castle from which he used to fly
Confederate flags. I happened to speak to a
Compatriot Eric A. Kaminski, Warsaw, Poland
representative of that place called Soltys. The lady
was about 70 years old and settled there in 1945; right
after WWII. I asked her many questions which were
answered negatively. But when I asked her about a
castle, she right away told me that there used to be a
big castle with a big library full of books in German.
She as a kid with other children used to run
around that castle until it was dismantled in 1953 by
the communists. In that place there had been built a
drying plant for hay. She remembered that the castle
was white and it had a ground floor with one story,
which stairs led to. She played with those books. She
told me about a graveyard with German people being
buried there. But I asked if there were people there
that were buried before WWII. She said that yes, that
it was an old cemetery, and devastated.
And sure enough, the place was devastated and
bushes and trees grow there now. Simply, no one is
taking care of that. I took pictures and hoped to find
the grave of von Borcke. I did not find it.
If von Borcke is there would be no grave marker
as the stones and markers had been stolen.
I talked to another person I met on a dirt road and
he told me that he had old pictures of the castle. But
he was on the way to work and I could not stop the
man. As I was taking more pictures of the place
where the castle was, I stumbled over a man that was
taking a walk. And how great that I did.
He told me that he used to work in the hay drying
plant during communism and there had been many
conversations in that plant on the fact that there used
to be a castle where now the plant stands. I asked if
von Borcke rang a bell. He said that the name does
not sound familiar but if that was the owner of the
castle, he is buried by a big tree next to the place
where the castle stood. That was the owner's wish to
be buried there as the story says.
We walked to the tree and it was a very big oak
tree about 150 years old. I did not walk to that tree as
that day it rained a lot and the ground was like
quicksand. I took a picture of that tree. After that I
left Gizyn.
I also found out where I could go to get some
more information and get pictures of the area of 19th
century. I was told about a man who is a historian
interested in that part of the land and I plan to contact
him.
For now you should be satisfied until I make
more contacts and will try to retrieve archives on von
Borcke, and that will take more time.