“Zambrow” (pronounced Zembrov) was part of my childhood. The town was mentioned whenever the topic of family history came up. It was where my Zaidy (grandfather) was born and, in 1920, at the age of 20, left. Other than Warsaw and, maybe, Krakow, it was the one place in Poland I had heard of. But I knew nothing about the town other than it existed, it was small, and it was, Jewishly, no more.

As I got involved in the Zembrover Society and began working on the English translation of Sefer Zambrow, the Yizkor Book, I knew nothing about what the town actually looked like. I learned that it was in the northeastern section of Poland. When the Nazis and Soviets divided Poland before the Second World War, Zambrow was in the eastern Soviet sector. I also learned that Zambrow was not some godforsaken shtetl of huts such as characterized towns in Ukraine. It had multi-story apartment buildings, a large Jewish synagogue, and a town square that hosted bi-weekly markets.

When I was planning the trip, I emailed our guide about visiting Zambrow, and assumed we would stay there overnight to begin or end our travels there. He rejected this idea out of hand. He probably had a good laugh about this suggestion and insisted we stay in Warsaw, about an hour and a half drive from Zambrow. Now I know that not only did he want to go home after our day of travel, but he was not going to put up with the low level of accommodations and services to be met in this out of the way town.

And so, after a full week in Poland visiting Warsaw and Krakow and western Poland, we set out early, at long last, to visit Zambrow. I was nervous, full of anticipation. Finally the day had arrived when the place that had inhabited my mind for many years was about the smack into the reality of an actual town in northeastern Poland.

As I’ve written elsewhere, our first stops that day were Lomza and the killing field near there. We got to Zambrow in the early afternoon. Our first stop, at our guide’s advice, was at a market to buy a bottle of vodka. Little did I know that Zambrow was best known for its vodka, which is flavored with buffalo grass. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BBubr%C3%B3wka). Turns out that the the word “Zambrow” refers to the grasses of eastern Poland that was the source of nourishment of the bison that inhabited these lands. (We didn’t drink it until we returned to the states, but I have to admit, even not being a big fan of vodka, it was good.)

As we entered the town, I was amused to find a sign that read “invest in Zambrow.”

Zambrow, apparently, is a town on the rise, or so it wants to be seen as such. There is even a YouTube video produced by the town that extols its great potential. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ7Tha9lYAc) You can even livestream what is happening at the main square. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9FhiSBPZDY)

The next few hours we spent in Zambrow were, admittedly, disappointing. I’ve already written about the deplorable condition of the Jewish cemetery. (http://zambrow.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-trashed-cemetery-zambrow.html) In addition, the town was ugly and filled with Soviet era block housing.

Inside a large brick building, which I believe was the site of the former military barracks built by the Russians, there was a library and a regional museum.

However,  the museum was closed because the director was sick. Our guide pressed the librarian for the phone number of the director. He was able to speak to him and explained we had come from the U.S. to visit Zambrow, but to no avail.

We walked around the town. There was no trace of its former Jewish presence, not even a marker. The town center was a small, undistinguished park.

While walking around, I noticed some writing on a wall.

I asked our guide what it meant. He explained it was drawn by supporters of the local soccer team and features the word “jebac,” which is Polish for “fuck.” That pretty much summed up our afternoon in Zambrow. After a few hours in the town, I had gained a newfound appreciation for my grandfather’s decision to leave it.

I don’t know what I really expected when I visited Zambrow. I already knew that there wasn’t much to see and that there were little traces of Jewish Zambrow. I felt drawn to this place. I had to come to Zambrow. But I left, as I was bound to, disappointed when my ancestral home met up against the prosaic reality of this nondescript Polish town in the northeastern corner of Poland.

Goodbye Zambrow. I don’t think I’ll be investing there anytime soon.