The Polish Wild West: Forced Migration and Cultural Appropriation in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1945-1948 by Beata Halicka

Author:Beata Halicka [Halicka, Beata]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe, Eastern, Germany, Jewish, Military, World War II, Russia & the Former Soviet Union, Austria & Hungary, Holocaust
ISBN: 9781000060058
Google: teXkDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 49760565
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Notes

1 A very interesting analysis of this issue has been conducted by Małgorzata Świder, Die sogenannte Entgermanisierung im Oppelner Schlesien in den Jahren 1945–1950, Lauf a.d. Pegnitz 2002; see also the chapter: ‘Keine polnische Seele… Die Autochthonen’, in: Hofmann, Die Nachkriegszeit in Schlesien. Gesellschafts- und Bevölkerungspolitik in den polnischen Siedlungsgebieten 1945–1948, Cologne 2000, pp. 265–331.

2 Memoir of Edward Morus, P67/1957, Archive of the Western Institute, Poznań.

3 All figures from Hryciuk, Grzegorz, Witold Sienkiewicz (red.), Wysiedlenia, wypędzenia i ucieczki, 1939–1959. Atlas ziem Polski, Warsaw 2008, pp. 82–87. In the group of 2,171,000 forced labourers and other migrants, the proportion of those coming to Poland from other European counties amounts to 298,000 while the number of those from beyond Europe is estimated at 8,000. Around 200,000 people returned to Poland from countries which today it is impossible to ascertain precisely.

4 Jan M. Piskorski, ‘Autochthone, Migranten, ihre Erinnerung und die Geschichte’, in: Kinga Konieczny, Andrzej Łazowski, A ty zostaniesz ze mną (Du aber bleibst mit mir), Szczecin 2008, pp. 15–24. Moreover, Michał Majerski has devoted his films to this subject: ‘Meiner Mutter Land’ (2005), ‘Meines Vaters Haus’ (2008) and ‘Streuselkuchen von zu Hause – Begegnungen in Oberschlesien’ (2010).

5 Klaus Bade, Michael Bommes, Jochen Oltmer, Sozialhistorische Migrationsforschung, Göttingen 2004. In the context of post-war Germany, many researchers question the correctness of the concept of ‘integration’ as a description of the unilateral incorporation of refugees and expellees into the society taken over by the Soviet zone of occupation and that of the later GDR. Alexander von Plato opts for the concept of ‘fusion’ (Verschmelzung), arguing that around 1945 a kind of ‘functioning host society’ did not exist, in his view. In Germany after 1945, society formed itself anew, while here immigrants became a precursor to a new lifestyle which itself initiated the processes of modernisation. See Volker Ackermann, ‘Integration. Begriffe, Leitbilder, Probleme’, in: Klaus Bade (ed.), Neue Heimat im Westen, Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge, Aussiedler, Münster 1990, pp. 14–36, here p. 25; Alexander von Plato, Wolfgang Meinicke, Alte Heimat – neue Heimat. Flüchtlinge, Umgesiedelte, Vertriebene in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone und in der DDR, Berlin 1991, p. 260.

6 See Abraham Maslow, Motywacja i osobowość, Warsaw 2006, pp. 62–76. German edition: Abraham Maslow and Paul Kruntorad, Motivation und Persönlichkeit, Reinbek 2002.

7 Ulrich Tolksdorf, Phasen der kulturellen Integration bei Flüchtlingen und Aussiedlern, in: Klaus Bade (ed.), Neue Heimat im Westen, Münster 1990, pp. 106–127, here p. 110.

8 Joann Craig, ‘Culture Shock: Singapore and Malaysia’, in: Dietmar Larcher (ed.), Kulturschock. Fallgeschichten aus dem sozialen Dschungel, Meran 1992, pp. 187–188.

9   Wanda Witter, ‘Horyzont nostalgii’, in: Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, Renate Stößinger, Robert Traba (eds.), Wypędzeni ze Wschodu. Wspomnienia Polaków i Niemców, Olsztyn 2001, pp. 260–273, here p. 266.

10 Ibid., p. 270.

11 Ibid., p. 271.

12 Ibid., p. 272.

13 Such an explanation of this term is not entirely accurate. Thus, plundering means appropriating someone else’s property and is a crime in itself, while looting falls into a legal ‘grey area’ but is, at least, a temporary unreproved form of plundering – the appropriation of items abandoned by their owners, not in the care of anyone.

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