One of the regions where Karina Hoření is conducting her research is Jablonec (formerly Gablonz) in north Bohemia. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jablonec grow into the biggest producer of glass and glass beads, and these goods were exported into the whole world. Industrial past of the city can still be seen in exotic motives of fin-de-siècle buildings (see photo by Karina).
Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska explains her research plans: What I am trying to unravel is how the material elements left by the Germans influence the new settlers and resulted in the creation of a new culture of these regions.
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Where would you look for German Ghosts? Would a cemetery be a too obvious answer?
That actually is one of the places where Michal Korhel continues his fieldwork in Handlová. One of the secrets of this cemetery is a „hidden“ Monument to the fallen Soldiers of WWI. Originally it was situated in the city center. After WWII it was destroyed. First in the 1960s its remnants were put together and placed on the backside of a newly established Memorial to the Fallen of WWII.
On October 21 Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska took part in the IV Congress of German Experts at the University of Wrocław organised by the Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies.She presented a paper with initial field research results “Domy, kości i patery na ciasto. Nadawanie nowych znaczeń rzeczom zastanym na Pomorzu Środkowym” (Houses, bones and cake plates. Giving new meanings to the existing things in Central Pomerania).
Dr Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska was among the five winners of the 22nd edition of The Polityka weekly’s Scientific Awards. Out of hundreds of candidates for the above-mentioned prize annually 15 finalists are selected in five major sciences: humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and technology. In this year’s edition of the “Polityka” Scientific Awards, 296 people applied for verification, and five received Scientific Awards – scholarships in the amount of PLN 15,000 PLN and an interview in the “Polityka” weekly.
While being in Slovakia, Michal Korhel also travelled to Handlová (Krickerhau), a town in the so called Hauerland region in central Slovakia. It is one of the three major German language islands in Slovakia. Nowadays, however, only few Carpathian Germans live there. Michal looked there for traces of German heritage, visited the local ethnographic museum of Carpathian Germans’ culture and conducted first interviews with resettlers, who came to the town after WWII.
On October 13, 2022, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska took part in an international conference in Prague organised by Etnologický ústav AV ČR (Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences) – Memory, Migration and Populism: Central and Eastern Europe’s post-imperial historical legacy and heritage. She presented a paper “Memory-making and vampire hunting. Memorial strategies in Polish Recovered Territories after 1945”.
In August Michal Korhel started his archival research in Slovakia. He visited the Slovak National Archive, where he found valuable information on post-WWII migration processes on Slovak territory as well as confiscation of German property.
Between July 12 and September 4, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska did first round of the fieldwork in Pomerania. As she was applying the ethnography at home method, she investigated the region of Wałcz county (formerly German Deutsch Krone), speaking to people who live in the area and participating in the everyday activities in various localities. Thanks to all who agreed to join the research and devoted their time to tell the stories about the past and present of the region! Also, Karolina did an initial search query in the archive in Koszalin where she found a vast number of memoirs written by the settlers to Pomerania.
As we held our first in-person workshop in Warsaw (26-28.09.), we had the occasion to finally meet face to face and discuss not only the research aims and hypotheses but also the first conclusions of initial fieldwork and archival research. The discussions continued long into the evenings, which we also used to apply the category of post-displacement, crucial for our project, to Warsaw. First, we visited Powązki Military Cemetery, to see the tombstones of the members of the communist party. These were the representatives of authorities essential for the resettlement of the formerly German territories incorporated into Poland after 1945. Then, we examined the memorial of the 1st Polish Army as a ghostly presence, as it was hurriedly unveiled before it was finished. Finally, we went to see how Warsaw was restored as a modern, and at the same time, a historical city. To this end, we analyzed the Warsaw W-Z Route. While we agreed the next meeting should take place in the regions we investigate, it was interesting to see the contrast between them and one of the capital cities.