Helen Podlas Lewandowski was born about 1890 in Poland, likely somewhere near Warsaw. She was the daughter of Adam Podlas and Anna Nagorski. Helen’s parents came to the United States in July of 1914, just as World War I was starting in Europe. They settled initially on Buckingham St. and named their daughter, Helen, as their contact in Poland on the incoming ship manifest to New York. Anna and Adam were each in their early 50s when they arrived here, they came alone with no children. The 1920 census does indicate that Helen was named on her parents’ manifest record with the Podlas surname, but chances are she was already married and had children at this time, and likely may have been a reason she did not leave with her parents or brother, Joseph.

Joseph Podlas, Adam and Anna’s son, arrived several months earlier in the US, in November 1913, listing his father as his contact in Poland on the manifest into New York and stating his last permanent address was Wroclawek, Warsaw. He was heading to Toledo, to a brother-in-law, Stanislaus Kozbial, who was living on Buckingham Ave.

The Podlas family members who arrived here by 1914 were fairly lucky: the US began to shutdown immigration from Europe during World War I. World War I brought an isolationist movement to the US and the Immigration Act of 1917 sought to prevent the US from becoming involved in World War I. While this act specifically banned immigration from British India, southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and the Middle East, it affected all immigrants from other areas. This act required a basic literacy test for all immigrants, barred homosexuals, “idiots,” “the insane,” “anarchists,” and “alcoholics.” It also had provisions for refusing anyone who had a physical disability, was poor, or had contagious disease. While the literacy test–reading a 30 to 40 word passage written in the immigrant’s native language was fairly simply for some to overcome, not all could. Not all had the education available to those in the US. Additionally, the law increased “head tax” that an immigrant was required to pay upon entry to $8 per person (this amount had been increased several times from the late 1800s from 50 cents per head–actually a rather substantial amount for the time, $8 in 1917 when accounting for inflation is about $200 in 2022). What isolationism and the Immigration Act of 1917 accomplished was to reduce immigration into the US from 1.3 million just ten years prior in 1907 to just under 111,000 in 1917.

Helen was even much luckier. She arrived here in the US just prior to the passage of the 1917 Immigration Act, in May 1917. An article published in the Toledo News Bee on 17 May 1917, just three or four days after her arrival in Toledo, recounts her story. No record I found provided her husband’s name; however, the News Bee article states she fled Poland because her husband was taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans, so we are certain she was married at the time she fled and not widowed or single. Warsaw was seized by the Germans the previous winter and had homes were forcibly searched for whatever was possible to take: food, valuables such as jewelry, tinware, clothing. The Russian Revolution started on 8 March 1917 and Russia Soviets in Polish cities attempting to recruit members into the military from factories and farms. Russian society was in an upheaval and Bolsheviks wanted Russia to withdraw from the warm. Poland was Russia’s and Germany’s playground. (As it was again in 1939, kicking off World War II.)

Helen arrived in Toledo with her then 9-year-old daughter, Bronislawa (Bernice). Through an interviewer and a translator, Helen told the story that after the Germans entered the city that the Germans offered passports to any women who wanted to leave the country. Helen obtained her passport and left for America on 1 January 1917. She had but one child surviving out of a total of four she had. Her other three children, Stanislawa (6 years old), Helen (4 years old), and Joseph (11 months) all died of starvation after the Germans took hold of Warsaw. Only Bronislawa survived to make the trip to America with her mother.

Helen expressed a fierce desire that the Germans be defeated and the war continue until they were defeated. She believed that Russia would not withdraw from the war unless every Russian was killed. Helen said that “the kaiser is offering the Poles everything if they join him… the Poles realize that he is losing and that they only would lose if they joined him… they speak of him as the ‘faker’.” Conditions in Warsaw were terrible, food was impossible to obtain. If food did arrive into the city, only a small handful of families could obtain a small portion, there was never enough to go around.

Children and women were left to die in the streets, their bodies were taken away and boiled to make oil to grease German guns and autos. Helen stated her children’s bodies were taken from her–the children’s bodies went with the massive number of other Poles who died. People scavenged. If dogs and cats were found to be wandering, they were used for food. Bread was made from the flour of acorns and other plants from the forests were gathered. German soldiers did not want to deal with women and children–if they got into the way of German soldiers, they were beaten. Women were forced to work in fields or factories by Germans. Germans began to realize they were better off without the women and children and offered them passports, which enabled Helen to leave.

Helen’s husband was captured by the Germans early on, at the outbreak of the war. The family was allowed one letter per month from him. When the Germans brought the letters to her, they would remind her that German women were suffering too. that they rioted in Berlin.

Helen stated she believed that Russia would have a revolution, that with the czar gone (Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, and he and his family was executed the following year), Russia would be better off. She was forced to sign a document by the Germans before leaving that she would not reveal anything she had seen or heard since the war had started.

Helen settled into life with her parents on Campbell street with her daughter. Her mother died in March 1925, her father died in 1928 and his death certificate stated he was a baker for Kozbial Bros. Bakery. Helen remained at the family home on Campbell street, raising her daughter. The 1930 census indicates her as married, the 1940 census indicates her as widowed. Helen’s daughter, Bernice never married and is indicated as still living with her mother on the 1950 census. Helen worked for the Toledo Glove Manufacturing Company throughout this time. I’ve found no evidence that her husband ever came to the United States.

Helen died 13 September 1972. Her daughter, Bernice died 26 December 1983.