Nathan C. Phillips and Professor Walter Whipple, German and Slavic Languages

While serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Poland Warsaw Mission, I came across historical records indicating that as early as 1860 branches of the Church were formed in present-day Poland. According to those records, some of these early branches reported significant membership, in the hundreds, only a few years after their formation. Branches exhibiting such successful growth included those located in the current cities of Szczecin, Wrocaw, and ary. Poland’s first known LDS chapel was built in the small village of Selbongen, present-day Zewgi, in the Mazura lake region of Northeast Poland. The building was dedicated on July 14, 1929.

Though it is evident that the Church thrived before World War II in what is now Poland, at the conclusion of the War, the Saints were forced to leave their homes and flee to Germany. Of the members of the Church in Wrocaw, then Breslau, Elder Ezra Taft Benson, who visited Eastern Europe at the conclusion of the war in 1946, wrote that “our Saints, who must now leave for the British Zone in Germany, are still carrying on bravely.”1 As Elder Benson recorded, these Saints fled present day Poland for Germany, leaving behind a lost legacy of Church membership. During the next 30 years, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was unrecognized by the government of Poland and virtually non-existent in the nation. That changed in 1977, when President Spencer W. Kimball visited Poland and dedicated the nation for the preaching of the Gospel.

The history of the Church in Poland from President Kimball’s visit to the present is quite well documented, but much of the earlier history of the Church, prior to World War II, remains unstudied and undocumented. The goal of my research was to conduct interviews (written or oral) with people who could remember the pre-World War II history of the Church in Poland and record these interviews as an oral history of the Church in this important part of the world. It was my feeling that if this research was not conducted quickly, the history would be lost, as those who remember the Church in Poland before the War will all soon be gone. I felt it was important to chronicle the sacrifices of early Polish Church members so that Saints for years to come could look to them as examples of strength and testimony.

I wish I could report that my research has been wonderfully successful, and that I was able to contact many who could detail the events of the Church in Poland prior to World War II. This, however, is not the case. My research has been sometimes frustrating and as of yet remains incomplete.

I think my failures have come for several reasons. First, chronicling a history of such magnitude is probably a bite too large to chew for the scope of this research project. At the outset, Walter Whipple, my faculty mentor and first President of the Poland Warsaw Mission, expressed his concern that taking on such a large endeavor would be impossible within the limits of an ORCA scholarship. Recognizing that, I tried to narrow the focus of my research to recording only oral histories. Though I knew that this would only begin to piece together the story of the Church in Poland, I thought it was a manageable task within the limitations of this research project. It was this narrowing, however, that provided me with my most significant frustration. At the outset of my research I contacted a former missionary who served in the Poland Warsaw mission and is a descendent of early Church members in Poland. I was hoping to use his relatives, now living in Germany and the U.S., as primary sources for interviews and information. So far, however, I have been unable to contact these people. Some of his relatives are in very poor health and unable to participate, while others he has not been able to contact. He has said he will continue trying, and I still hope to conduct oral interviews, or send questionnaires to these individuals.

I have been extremely grateful for the chance I’ve had to this point to focus on what I consider such an important research task. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are often reminded of the exemplary lives of pioneers in the Church=s early days who were forced to move west across the United States because of persecution. We hear little, however, about those Saints in other parts of the world who have also suffered persecution and were forced to flee their homes, but remained faithful to their testimonies. As the Church expands internationally, I think it is all the more vital to hear told the stories of early Saints around the world who sacrificed and remained faithful. The example of early Polish Saints can inspire a new generation of Polish members as well as members throughout the world to continue faithfully in the gospel. For this reason, I hope to continue and complete this research.

References

• Benson, Ezra Taft. A Labor of Love: The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson. Salt Lake City: Deseret (1989): 158.