JAGICOM: Juden und Deutsche im polnischen kollektiven Gedächtnis. Zwei Fallstudien zu Erinnerungsprozessen in lokalen Gemeinschaften nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg
Empirische Sozialforschung
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
The project aimed at an analysis of the process of constructing the memory of Jews and Germans in two specific towns in today´s Poland: Dzierżoniów (formerly Reichenbach im Eulengebirge) and Racibórz (formerly Ratibor), both because of their history conceptualized as towns situated in borderland regions. Both towns have different histories, as Racibórz was a German city in Upper Silesia before the Second World War, where a significant number of Germans and Silesians stayed after the war, while Dzierżoniów had been German before the Second World War, but experienced a significant influx of Jewish population after the Second World War and the expulsions of most of the remaining German population to the German occupation zones. So both towns were coined by ethnically mixed populations in a borderland region. Borderlands (understood not only in a geographical, but also in a metaphorical sense) turned out to be an important conceptual framework of the project. The project via the project participants also included comparative outlooks to other cities in the region, such as Wroclaw and Jelenia Góra, to ask questions about “Heimat”, heritage and commemoration in relation to Jews and Germans and their role in Polish history. The project as well expanded on its initial question: It did not only ask about the memory of Jews and Germans in those regions and towns, but also about the identifications of members of the groups in question and how they perceived their own situation and role in Poland and Polish history. The significance of this topic can hardly be overestimated: Jews and Germans played a key role in Polish history, culture and consequently also in collective memory. Both groups are strongly present in the consciousness of Polish society and in popular as well as academic discourse. And yet, the question of how this memory emerged, how it changed, how it is related to social processes and how it is constructed today, is still open. The project aimed at investigating the mechanisms that allow the past to be present in collective memory and shape its form and content. It investigated changes after 1945 and after 1990 in Silesia, while combining the exploration of landscapes with Oral History, expert interviews and sociological questionnaires, the project attempted to find out who introduced these changes, in what way, and why. The project assessed as well how people speak about these changes. Doing so, the project investigated how people engaged with and made sense of landscapes, regarding the representation of and relation to the past. At the same time, the project unveiled processes of making (and unmaking) memory in and through landscape, and the creation of landscape through memory and commemoration.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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Counter-Narratives of the Twentieth Century? Re- Configurations due to Mobility, Violence and Transformation. Introduction, in: Imaginations and Configurations of Polish Society. From the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century, hg. von Jürgen Heyde et.al.], Wallstein Göttingen, S. 281-290.
Kalwa, Dobrochna & Steffen, Katrin
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Pamięć i zapominanie w społecznościach lokalnych na przykładzie stosunku do miejsc pamięci w Dzierżoniowie i Raciborzu. Rocznik Ziem Zachodnich, 1, 504-528.
Czajkowski, Paweł
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Aliens In The Lands Of The Piasts: The Polonization Of Lower Silesia And Its Jewish Community In The Years 1945–1950. Jews and Germans in Eastern Europe, 234-256. De Gruyter.
Kijek, Kamil
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German Jews in Jelenia Góra immediately After the End of the Second World War. Rocznik Ziem Zachodnich, 2.
Szajda, Marek
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Początki instytucjonalnego życia żydowskiego na Dolnym Śląsku od maja do sierpnia 1945 roku, in: Koniec wojny na Śląsku. Rok 1945 : studia i materiały, hg. Ksawery Jasiak, Krzysztof Kawalec, Piotr Stanek, Opole, Warszawa, p. 169-177.
Szajda, Marek
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The Power over Collective Memory. City and power: postmodern urban spaces in contemporary Poland, in: City and Power – Postmodern Urban Spaces in Contemporary Poland. Ed by Katarzyna Kajdanek, Igor Pietraszewski, Jacek Pluta, Berlin Bruessel, 16-47.
Pabjan, Barbara
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Trudne dziedzictwo zawarte w kamieniu : losy niemieckich pomników żołnierzy poległych w I wojnie światowej po 1945 r. na przykładzie Jeleniej Góry [A difficult heritage engraved in stone. The Great War Memorials of fallen soldiers after 1945 in Jelenia Góra], „Zeszyty Etnologii Wrocławskiej” 2018, nr 1, pp 147-174.
Szajda, Marek
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Commemorating a multicultural past in a post-migration city. The attitudes to commemoration of German and Jewish cultural heritage in the city of Wrocław, At Home or Abroad? CHIŞINĂU, ČERNIVCI, L´VIV AND WROCŁAW: Living with Historical Changes to Borders and National Identities, ed. by Bo Larsson, Malmö, p. 474-49 ISBN: 9789187439377 9187439379
Pabjan, Barbara
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Polsko-niemieckie upamiętnienia po 1989 r.. Między Legnicą a Jelenią Górą : prace dedykowane Stanisławowi Firsztowi w 40-lecie pracy w muzealnictwie i 65. Urodziny, hg. Ivo Łaborewicz, Marek Szajda, Stanisław Firszt, Jelenia Gora, p. 339-350.
Szajda, Marek
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REICHENBACH/ RYCHBACH/ DZIERŻONIÓW A CENTER FOR JEWISH LIFE IN POLAND IN A PERIOD OF TRANSITION, 1945−1950. Our Courage – Jews in Europe 1945–48, 104-117. De Gruyter.
Kijek, Kamil
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Der Zweite Weltkrieg und der Holocaust in der deutschen und polnischen Erinnerungskultur und der deutsch-polnischen Kommunikation, in: Von Antisemitismus bis Kunst. Handbuch der deutsch-polnischen Kommunikation, Teilband 1, hg. von Sylwia Dec- Pustelnik, Peter Klimczak, Arkadiusz Lewicki und Izabela Surynt, Wiesbaden 2021, S. 85- 113.
Steffen, Katrin
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Likwidacja „poniemieckich” cmentarzy na terenie Jeleniej Góry w 1970 roku W krainie Ducha Gór. Tom pamięci doktora Przemysława Wiatera, p. 172-186.
Szajda, Marek
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A NEW LIFE?. Jewish Lives under Communism, 15-34. Rutgers University Press.
Kijek, Kamil
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Ludność żydowska na Dolnym Śląsku po II wojnie światowej (1945–1950). Kilka uwag dotyczących stanu badań i nowych perspektyw badawczych Przegląd Zachodni 4, 107-130.
Szajda, Marek
