Słopnice is like much of Poland, once home to the biggest Jewish community in the world. It does not obfuscate its Jewish heritage; nothing remains of it to hide

Słopnice’s mayor first heard of Bernie Sanders in 2013. “The foreign ministry called from Warsaw. They asked if the village could accommodate a visit from an American,” said Adam Sołtys. “My question was ‘why is he coming?’ I did not know he was a senator. I expected a retired guy, who was getting old and looking for his roots.”

Bernie Sanders and his elder brother Larry wanted to visit their grandmother’s village – the one their father, Eli, emigrated from aged 17. But for Sołtys, the visit was a daunting prospect requiring much diplomacy. He feared Poland’s painful history of occupation, mass emigration and the Holocaust might feed suspicions among the 6,500 villagers that the Americans were coming to claim property in the Beskid valley.

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The mayor turned to local amateur historian Maria Król. She confirmed that a Jewish family named Sanders had, indeed, lived in House 215 before the second world war. They had held a tavern on a plot by the river, opposite what is now the Top Market grocery store. She even found a 1986 photograph of the ramshackle wooden house, taken 10 years before it was demolished.

“I did not know what to expect from the visit,” said Sołtys. “Even though people have emigrated from this region for centuries, it is rare for anyone to want to come and explore the distant past. Obviously people would wonder what their motivation might be.”

He admits he was relieved to learn more recently that Sanders wants to be president of the United States – news which presumably made it clear to all of Słopnice that the senator is unlikely to be interested in real estate in Poland’s poorest region. “Now I realise why Bernie Sanders did not just ask about his family,” said the mayor. “He wanted to know about the standard of living in Słopnice and the health and education systems in Poland. These were politicians’ questions. He was impressed by what he saw. He wants the United States to reach our European standards.”

Słopnice, about an hour’s drive from Kraków, nestles in a landscape that looks strikingly like Bernie Sanders’ home state, Vermont. A plethora of European Union logos alongside freshly tarred roads, new hiking trails and brightly coloured children’s play facilities are testament to millions of development euros spent here since Poland joined the EU in 2004.

The unemployment rate has fallen from 16% to around the Polish average of 10%.

Emigration is in decline for the first time in decades, maybe centuries. When Bernie Sanders’ father and uncle left in 1921, there was every reason to go. Since the 18th century, the subsistence farming region had been a neglected backwater of Austria-Hungary. Jews lived in cities. But they were not allowed to own farmland; there were only 10 Jewish families in Słopnice.

Eli and his brother left behind another brother, a sister and their mother (Bernie Sanders’ grandmother). She married again – to a man named Schnitzer – and had a child by him. She died in 1934. Eli’s sister stayed in House 215 and married a man named Reibscheid. They had a son, Leopold. No trace has survived of Eli’s remaining brother. The mayor and the historian Król believe he at some point “went to the city” (probably nearby Kraków). There, under German occupation, he would have been confined to the ghetto and would have found it difficult to escape deportation to a labour camp or death camp, such as Auschwitz.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest House 215, where members of Bernie Sanders’ family lived until the Jews of Słopnice were killed by the Nazis during the second world war. From local historian Maria Król’s book on the village. Photograph: Supplied

It is also assumed that the Reibsheids and Schnitzers all died at the hands of the Nazis after being moved to a ghetto in nearby Limanow. Król’s local history book records in chilling brevity that the Jews of Słopnice – including “Schnitzer (2 people) and Reibsheid (3)” – were executed at Limanow on 5 November 1942.

Słopnice is like much of Poland, once home to the biggest Jewish community in the world. It does not obfuscate its Jewish heritage; nothing remains of it to hide.

Last Friday, at Jan Kanty Andrusikiewicz school, pupils celebrated the arrival of a satin school flag. In the sports hall, the mayor and the local MP were treated to singing and dancing from children dressed in lovingly sewn 19th century costumes – milkmaids, peasants, soldiers and a priest, but no rabbi.

In the basement of the school is a small museum, filled with old tools and household implements donated by the community. There are crosses on the wall but no menorah. Asked whether Słopnice’s newfound link with Senator Sanders might invite an opportunity for pupils to explore the stories of families like his, head teacher Grzegorz Biedroń, 54, said abruptly: “The Holocaust is in the curriculum. We do not talk about it much because the children are small. But we do not have a problem talking about it at all.”

Edward Jaworski, 75, says the opposite. “No one has ever said much about the Jewish families here. I have heard that there was a synagogue in the village but that it burnt down during the war.”

Jaworski is the last person to have lived in House 215, which his parents were allocated in 1946, and later bought from the local authority. “I was only six years old when we moved in. I remember steep stairs and I was told that people used to drink vodka there. A cooperative shop opened on the property and my father used the old tavern to dry fruit,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The pupils of Jan Kanty Andrusikiewicz School wear traditional costumes and peasants’ and soldiers’ outfits for a performance of dances and songs. Photograph: Alex Duval Smith

Jaworski now lives in a flat behind the Top Market. In 1996, his son Józef dismantled House 215. The following year, when much of Poland was hit by floods, the Słopniczanka river swept away the planks. Józef and his wife, Małgorzata, built a modern house on the plot, painted it yellow and displayed its new number, 1017, on the façade.

Małgorzata, 42, was at home on 29 August 2013 – the day Bernie and Larry came to Słopnice with their wives, Jane and Janet.

“The mayor wanted Bernie Sanders all to himself. He was shown the house from the road. Had I known he was coming I would have invited him in for tea,” she said.

She thinks the Sanders connection could be a boon. “It has already put us on the map. I really think it could help Słopnice,” she said. “Things are getting better here but only slowly. You still really only find seasonal work.”

It is not known what President Bernie Sanders might have in store for his father’s home village.

But Larry, 81, who lives in Britain and is health spokesman for the Green Party, said in an email to the Guardian that the one-day visit in 2013 had been “important to us and very moving”.

He said: “The mayor was very welcoming. It was Bernie’s first visit. I had been there about 12 years earlier, with our cousin, Carol Sanders, the daughter of the other brother who emigrated to New York. Bernie and I were very impressed with our visit to the school. We were pleased to see that the town appeared prosperous and well kept. Bernie assured the mayor that he would continue to pay close attention to congressional issues which concerned Poland.”

Sołtys, who is in his fifth term after winning a “North Korean score” of 93% of the vote in the last election, stopped short of offering advice to the 74-year-old Democratic party candidate.

But he said: “Sanders is warm, kind and straightforward. Those are the qualities that make him an excellent politician.”