#grojec

Kraków costume, western areas: embroidered corset from the village of Grojec, Poland.

Szukamy Tosi

zaginęła 16.04.2025 r. woj. małopolskie, pow. Oświęcim. Ostatnio widziana Grojcu w okolicach pałacu. Suczka do połowy łydki, czarna podpalana z białym krawatem,długowłosa, jasne brwi. Spokojna, przyjacielska. Nigdy się nie oddalała od domu. W domu czeka na nią dwulatek który bardzo tęskni. Posiada czip. kontakt 783-979-257

A teenager with a tongue the size of a tennis ball fears going to sleep every night - in case he chokes to death on the huge organ.

Krzysztof Wegrzyn, from Grojec, Poland, was born with a haemangioma - a benign tumour in the blood vessels of his tongue.

Two attempts were made to remove the growth when he was a child but both had to be called off because of massive blood loss.

Condition: Krzysztof’s tongue is the size of a tennis ball (CEN)

Struggle: The teenager is hoping to have life-changing surgery on his tongue (CEN)

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Now 18, Krzysztof’s tumour has grown so large it is close to blocking off his airway and he is struggling to speak.

But despite his problems there is still a chance he could live a completely normal life.

Krzsysztof explained: "I saw a boy from Norway who underwent an operation there and he looked great. You could not see that he had ever been ill.

Growth: Krzysztof’s condition makes it difficult for him to breathe (CEN)

"This is my biggest dream but I do not want to be disappointed."

His family are now trying to raise £48,000 for a trip to the Zentrum Klinik fur Vasculare Maltformationen in Eberswalde, Brandenburg, Germany, where specialist doctors can remove the tumour.

If he gets the life-changing treatment, Krzsysztof said he would want to finish his studies, pass his driving test and see his dream of becoming a chef come true.

Ola Cichowlas returns to the Polish orchards her grandmother grew up in to find out how apple growers are handling Russia’s boycott of this year’s harvest:

We had breakfast at the hotel, which was surprisingly good, and set to Grojec, where my grandfather was born. Getting there was fairly easy, since we were smart enough to rent a GPS with the car. We were trying to find some adventures on the way, but only ran into this figure, inviting us to a closed restaurant:

and so, after an hour or so, we were in Grojec.

We decided to start by driving on the perimeter of the town, assuming this is where we would find the cemetery, and indeed, after no more than ten minutes, we found one. It was a Christian cemetery, but it's a start, right?

Now, I'm sure this is common, but I have never seen this, nor did Julia, so we were quite surprised: the graves seem to have the bodies of entire families – many tomb stones had several names on them, sometimes as many as six or seven, with the years of birth and death written next to each name. The graves had some kind of a drawer, which is probably the way the new tenants find their way in.

The drawers were, of course, sealed, so you couldn't just open them to see who's home, but marks of breaking those seals in the past were clearly visible. Obviously, this was an inspiration to us for many jokes , and when we were finally done, we walked along the fence to try to find a Jewish section, but without success.

We went back to the car and drove some more, when we found another graveyard. Again – drawers, jokes, fence – but aha! There it is!

Past the gate, you walk a little, until you encounter this:

The writing in the stone at the very far end , in Yiddish and Polish, states that 200 Jews who were murdered by the Nazis are buried here in a mass grave (“Broder kever” in Yiddish, meaning a grave of brothers).

Further down the trail, we found this:

A Mr. Kalmanzon erected this in memory of his family and the rest of the Jewish community in Grojec. When you look at this memorial from up close, you don't notice the graffiti. We only discovered it as we were viewing the pictures.

We didn't see any graves though. There must have been graves there from the time that is before the second world war. We did find maybe five or six scattered stones that could have been parts of graves.

From what I read and understand, the Nazis destroyed the graveyard as they moved through the town. The Jews they did not kill in the town and are buried at the mass grave were sent to concentration camps. I'm not sure what happened to my great-grandparents – whether they died before the war, murdered in Grojec or sent to the camps. I am pretty sure somebody in my family knows. Anyway, we had enough. Our mission was accomplished, and we decided to move on.

We drove around until we got to what looked like the town square. It was a drizzling Saturday so everything was pretty quiet. We found one open restaurant and by using some common sense and pointing at the menu we managed to get two bowls of soup – one was a chicken noodle soup, and the other had pieces of sausage, hard boiled eggs and lots of dill, and they were both heavenly.

As we continued to walk around the town, we passed by a race - perhaps the annual Grojec race, if such a thing exists. I also want to comment here on the appearance of the Polish people: everybody looks like they're up to no good. The men, the women, the children, the elderly – they all look like they're up to no good. I don't know if it's the facial features or expression, the clothes, the body language – they just look like they're up to no good.

We wandered into a supermarket, where we bought some snacks – Some chocolate and kefir (a yogurt drink) as a dessert for our lunch, some mystery Polish meat and two small loaves of bread. We also bought me a nice scarf, which cost one Zloty , which is about a quarter. Don't you just love Polish supermarkets?

We had enough of Grojec. We turned on our GPS navigator and changed the accent setting to “New Zealand”, cherishing the couple we left behind in the taxi stop in Modlin. We named the GPS “Nigel”, and selected randomly the town of Garwolin, about an hour away, as our next destination.

We stopped in some village to watch a casual soccer game.

There is nothing in Garwolin. We walked around, looking for something to see or do, but other than a lot of signs for dentists, there was nothing interesting - not that I'm saying that signs for dentists are interesting. We had to go to the bathroom, and the best opportunity looked like the church. There was a service taking place, so we walked around, and near the back door there was a sign saying “W.C.” and some other words in Polish. We got in through the back door and found a urinal. I stopped to take a leak and Julia kept on wandering in the corridors of the church. Then I heard somebody yelling at her in Polish, and then in English: “not a bathroom. This is church!”. I did what every good boyfriend would have done - closed the door behind me and remained quiet in my hiding place with my genitals in my hand. I heard Julia leave the church, and so I was relieved and continued to (ha ha) relieve myself. Suddenly the door opened and a dude wearing a robe was behind me. Even with a robe, or maybe because of it, he looked like he's up to no good. Again, some Polish, and then in English, but for Christ's sake – let me finish! “no, not a bathroom. This is church!”.

I left, found Julia outside, and we got away as fast as possible. As we were walking, I picked up some words on that sign. I think it said “there's a restroom at the culture center”. Oops.

Garwolin was obviously not cooperating with us. We were getting really tired and couldn't even find a place to get some coffee. We decided to leave back to Warsaw. We stopped at a MacDonald's right outside Garwolin for some coffee and a cake, and continued driving back to Warsaw, with good old Nigel leading the way.

We got a room at a Holiday Inn, looked on-line for a traditional Polish restaurant and after a glass of wine at the hotel bar, we walked towards the Folk Gospoda restaurant. In the restaurant, sitting with his friends but constantly messing with his phone, was no other than ring-tone dude from the airport at Modlin. anyway, the food was soooo good. I leave you with pictures of wonderful, wonderful food.

Starter 1: Borshct (barszcz)

Starter 2: goose drippings (not to be confused with goose droppings)

Main course 1: pork knuckles (golonka)

Main dish 2: duck