Poznań, Poland: Tracing My Family’s Roots from Massachusetts to the Old Market Square

When we were planning our trip around Berlin and IFA, one of the first things I noticed was that Poznań was nearby, a city I have always wanted to visit.

My father’s family migrated from Poznań to Massachusetts in the early 1900s. My paternal grandfather was born nearby and he left with his mother when he was a young boy. My dad told me he spoke Polish at home before he went to school but other than that he didn’t talk much about his background.

After I was born my parents moved out west and we didn’t see my dad’s family that much, but I always remembered my uncle Ed telling me about his visit to Poznań and connecting with cousins there. He sent my dad a page torn out of a pop magazine, like the Tiger Beats of my youth – with the name “Antkowiak” on a banner across it – that we displayed at home for years. 

At first I thought we might do a quick day trip to Poznań from Berlin, but instead we decided to make it the first stop on our trip around Poland. I was able to book a Flixbus that would got us from Berlin to Poznań in a few hours.

Poznań Planning

I couldn’t find a whole lot of tourist information from the traditional sources and guidebooks but I did see quite a few blogs and YouTube videos of Poznań that helped us get a better understanding of the city.

The main highlight of Poznań is their newly remodeled Old Market Square (Stary Rynek in Polish), which was closed for a couple of years and just reopened to the public in late 2023. We chose a small bed and breakfast, the Schoeps Residence, that was less than a two minute walk from the square.

We arrived in Poznań at a big multi-story modern shopping center. Super hungry after the long bus ride, we decided to grab a bite to eat while we figured out how to navigate to the bed and breakfast. We were a little intimidated by the Polish signage at first and decided we’d take the easy route and get McDonald’s. And I have to say, the burgers and fries were pretty darn good. It’s not usually our first choice, but European McDonald’s are often way better than the states, they must have better meat and less preservatives.

We took the streetcar to the Old Market Square area and found our way to our home for the next two days. The Schoeps Residence had a smart entry so we could check in easily with a code and get settled. Our apartment was modern and cozy and newly renovated, and luckily for us, there was a washer and dryer downstairs so we could do some laundry (once we figured out how to work the Polish machine!)

For dinner, we headed out to the Market Square to look for a spot to eat and after walking around a bit, settled on Rynek 95, a quirky historic spot. Our young waiter spoke great English and helped us choose some good options on the menu. I had my first Pierogi – beef filled ones with blueberry sauce, the daily special. I asked the waiter where the red wine was from, and he said – I can’t remember the name of the place – but it is where Stalin is from. It’s Georgia, and their wines are very nice by the way.

Exploring Poznań

The next day we had a full day to explore the city. Poznań is the fifth largest city in Poland at about half a million residents, with more than a million in the metropolitan area. There seemed to be quite a lot of economic development in the area with the Market Square renovation as well as a lot of modern shopping and restaurants around. 

We started our day with an excellent breakfast at our hotel and got to chat with the owner, Iwona. She told us all about the history of the building – it’s named after a local famous sculptor, Augustyn Schoeps, who owned the tenement house in the 18th century.  They renovated the building completely while retaining the beautiful brickwork and the original medieval foundation stones.

The building is now clean, beautiful and modern with ten apartments and a wine bar in the basement where we enjoyed our breakfast. When Iwona saw my name, Antkowiak, on the reservation, she assumed I was Polish so was surprised to find two Americans at breakfast. She gave me a lesson on the proper pronunciation of my name – I always have kept the T silent, but she spoke it as “AnT-Kov-Yack” and confirmed that indeed, it was a popular local surname.

After breakfast we headed back to the market square to see one of Poznan’s most popular attractions – the mechanical clock at the Town Hall and its famous goats. A pair of billy goats comes out every day to butt heads, as they have been doing most every day at noon since 1551). We had seen it on YouTube so of course had to see it in person.

We stopped first at the tourist info office to get the scoop on the goats, and we learned that a lot of museums happened to be free that day. So we decided to visit the Town Hall museum first to see the inside of the building where the goats live.

The original Town Hall was built in the 13th century, just after Poznań became an official city. In the sixteenth century, it was reconstructed into the beautiful Renaissance masterpiece it is today, with its elegant facade and mechanical clock. It was partially destroyed and then remodeled after World War II, and has been the home of the Museum of the History of Poznan since 1954.

The museum was immaculately clean and had tons of artifacts collected over the centuries and was staffed well even during a slow mid-week morning. It was here where we really started to see the intense pride the people of Poznań have in their city, and the tremendous investment they have made here, in the old market square, and other museums and attractions. We continued to see this pride all over Poland. 

Watching the famous Goats

After seeing the inside of the Town Hall, we set up to find a good spot to watch the show. By noon a small crowd gathered and we were hopeful the goats would beat the rainstorm (they did). 

Legend has it that the goats were added to the mechanical clock after its original installation in 1551. Once the clock was installed there was a big feast in Poznan to celebrate. A young kitchen boy was in charge of cooking the venison but burned it, so instead he stole two goats from a nearby meadow to replace the meat. Evidently the goats escaped and ran to the top of the tower, where they butted heads for all the townspeople to see. Afterward the cook was forgiven and the goats became a permanent fixture.

At noon, the clock strikes twelve and the goats slowly come out, butt heads twelve times, then go back inside. The whole presentation takes about a minute, but felt longer somehow. It was fun and certainly more original than other mechanical clocks I’ve seen before.

St Martin’s Croissant

This is the famous local pastry, filled with white poppy seeds, honey, marzipan, citrus, nuts, raisins, and rum. In the Market Square there is even a museum you can visit and learn more about the history and how they’re made, but that seemed like a little too much for us.

But of course we had to try one. It took us a while to find the shop in the square because Apple Maps sent us to a dumpster instead. But eventually we did locate the shop and got our croissant. Not really our favorite, but we did try it.

Enigma Museum

After the goats we decided to check out the Enigma Cipher Centre. We took the tram further downtown and found the museum just across from the monument to the three Polish mathematicians who helped to crack the German Enigma machine, the famous machine used by the Nazis to transmit messages during World War II.

I have seen the Enigma movie with Benedict Cumberbatch and visited an exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London with an Enigma machine. Based on those experiences, I thought that Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park were the ones who cracked the Enigma code and I didn’t remember learning about any Polish connection. So visiting this museum was quite an education and the start of our journey to better understand World War II history from the Polish perspective.

The museum tracks the history of three mathematicians, Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki who had a huge impact on the process, by cracking the original cipher and later working with Turing and his team.

The museum is as much about the evolution of the formal study of cryptology and its relationship with mathematics as it is about defeating the Nazis. The three students were selected among the best students at the University of Poznań to take a secret cryptology course in 1929 and they began their work in the same building that now houses the museum. 

The museum has a wonderful audio guide that knows your location and plays automatically (in English for us) and there are lots of interactive exhibits where you can create or solve codes. We learned so much and came away with a new understanding of the contribution that this community made to helping to turn the tide of the war.

Ostrow Tumski (Cathedral Island)

After the Enigma Museum, we headed over to the oldest part of Poznań (and one of the oldest parts of Poland, evidently), the Cathedral Island or Ostrow Tumski.

This island is connected to the town by several bridges and we walked over one after taking the streetcar. It’s got lots of trees and greenery and is the home to the Poznań Cathedral, the oldest in Poland and an important site in this very Catholic Country. 

We walked across the island, stopping in the church then finding a cute little pierogi shop for a late lunch/early dinner. This was the first time on our trip that we encountered baked pierogi. The shop had a lot of unusual combinations including plenty of vegetarian and vegan options. We enjoyed a nice sampling with some delicious local beer and had a great time chatting with the young woman working there who was planning a trip to New York.

Stary Browar Mall

For our last adventure in Poznan we visited the Stary Browar mall – a sprawling mall, food and entertainment complex. The weather was nicer that evening and there were lots of people hanging out in the adjoining park, and the mall and restaurants were all bustling with activity. The complex was a former brewery and still had a lot of the original red brick and industrial look. Inside we saw plenty of familiar high-end stores, a thriving food hall and cinema.

Antkowiaks

I didn’t have a lot of time to do research before we got to Poznań about my dad’s family. Thanks to my cousin, I had some records my uncle had made in the 90s, and while we were in Berlin she also sent me our grandfather’s baptismal certificate. It was stamped by the archdiocese of Poznań but he was born and baptized in Leszno, which was a bit further away. With another day and perhaps a rental car I would have liked to visit that town, but as it worked out we weren’t able to fit it in this time.

I had looked up Antkowiak on Google and found a couple of random shops further away from the town center, too far for our quick trip. I had basically given up on seeing my name anywhere until we stumbled on a small sign not too far from the pierogi shop on Ostrow Tumski. 

Thanks to our pocket translator we learned that it was for a framing shop, and unfortunately it was closed. 

Maybe someday I can go back to Poznan again and learn more about my dad’s ancestors who still live in the area.

Leaving Poznań, our first Polish city

Poznań was a lovely, vibrant town with lots of young people and a lot of recent investment and improvements. It was compact with easy to use public transport and lots of interesting places to visit. It even has its own Michelin starred restaurant, one of only a handful in Poland. It was a great way to start our Poland adventure. The next day we headed to the train station to get to our next stop, Wrocław.