SABIELNEN-ZABIELNE - FREUNDLINGEN - SABIELNEN KREIS JOHANNISBURG

In East Prussia ( Ostpreussen ) there is a little village called Sabielnen, the recorded birthplace of my great grandfather, Jacob Worgul at the time he married his second wife, Augusta Gulatz. I visited Sabielnen in August 2005 and found the village much like it was when he lived there in the latter part of the 1800's. It was apparent that the second world war had passed it by, for all the old houses and weatherbeaten out buildings were still standing with no visible signs of bomb damage or armies colliding. Indeed, there would be no value in bombing the place, for the village consists of only a dozen or so houses and a one room school, with no industry except farming.

A sign is well placed just before one enters the village.

Sabielnen is a very small village. All the houses are fenced, and people heat with wood gathered from the nearby forests. Many keep chickens and one even had a cow, seen here. It certainly looks well fed.

The people in the village are all Polish. Fortunately, my fifth cousin, Erhard Taddey,could speak Polish and he asked an elderly lady if she knew where the Worgul house was. She pointed it out.

Front view of what was once the Worgul home. Actually the houses in Sabielnen look a lot like houses in America. Most were in a state of disrepair, but, as you might suspect, there are a lot of houses in the USA that need repair also.

This is the rear of the Worgul home. The two young men live in the house with their mother. We were not able to get into the house. It would have been nice if we could.

The village school. It looks like it had been here for at least a hundred years. None of the buildings showed any damage from the war. It's as if the war passed the village by completely.