>The site was called Zelazowa Wola.
>The copse was about three or four miles east of the site as I recall. 

Zelazowa Wola is the village where one visits Chopin's birthplace.
Population 65 or 100 depending on which website you use.
It is 29 miles west of Warsaw so surely the historic tree
and the gas copse are east of it.

Take note that 2010 is the Chopin bicentennial.  
50 years earlier I was studying in Paris, and one of
my classmates was a Polish girl, so I began to
learn the language, preparatory to attending the
quinquennial Chopin contest in Warsaw.
My request for a visa was turned down,
and I still haven't been to Poland,
and I've lost track of the girl.
(Does anyone know the Polish equivalent
of whitepages.com?)

Several minutes on Google didn't turn up
anything about the tree or the copse,
so the way to find them may be to hire
the same driver that our guys used,
or at least to take the same route.

Not much further off topic:  It is said
that during the Nazi occupation, to perform
the music of Chopin (in Poland) 
was a capital crime.  How would we
confirm or debunk this?  I have always
assumed it was true, because 
I don't have a drop of Polish blood 
but Chopin has an incredible effect on me.

(Snopes.com has nothing on Chopin.)



Martin C. Tangora
University of Illinois at Chicago
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