On January 5, Karolina was again a guest on Anna Dudzińska’s broadcast Klub Trójki. This time, the discussion was sparked by the radio documentary Węzełek [A Bundle] by Magda Skawińska. The documentary is built around particular objects, such as a small bundle and a set of keys carried by people forced to leave their homes. Referring to historical practices of packing essential belongings during displacement, the bundle evokes both loss and survival, while the key symbolizes the home left behind. By weaving personal testimonies of expulsion with broader reflections on memory and identity, the documentary connects historical displacement with contemporary experiences of migration and conflict, showing how people continue to carry their bundles, both literally and symbolically.
At the end of the broadcast, Karolina reflected on migration as a recurring feature of Central European history. She discussed the specific character of postwar migration in western Poland, the long-term effects of settlement policies in the so-called Recovered Territories, and how these histories shape present-day social realities locally and beyond. The discussion also touched on who the postwar settlers were, whether they can be considered refugees, and how the history of postwar settlement is—and is not—present in mainstream discourse in Poland.
In the last seminar of 2025, we read and discussed a text by Elizabeth Benjamin from Coventry University, introducing the distinct category of nonuments. Drawing on her research in France, Benjamin constructs a typology of nonuments, that is, contested monuments that vary in the degree to which they are preserved.
We devoted a substantial amount of time to engaging with Benjamin’s proposal and to considering how her typology addresses questions of recycling, which are also central to our own research. This discussion formed part of our broader effort to refine a working definition of recycling.
During the seminar, we also reflected on the kinds of nonuments that might be found within our own fieldwork. Each of us selected and presented an example of a nonument encountered in their research, which we would now like to share with you.
Magdalena: The photograph shows the site of the former Protestant church in Liberec, formerly German Reichenberg, surrounded by trees, with benches and a low wall covered in shrubs in the centre, which may symbolise the front of the church. Today, there is a park and a children’s playground on this site. This would be a ‘ruined’ nonument.
Karina: The town hall in Liberec, formerly German Reichenberg, was built in the 1880s to symbolize the economic power of Bohemian Germans in the rising industrial center. The architecture imitates the Saxon Renaissance style to emphasize further the German character of the building, the city, and the region. The town hall, like all municipal institutions, began to be used by the new, ethnically Czech city administration. According to Benjamin, one type of nonuments is ‘reframed,’ that is, when the original structure remains, but the purpose or meaning changes. In this respect, all monuments in post-displacement regions can be considered nonuments, as the cultural and political shift was so radical that it shook the meaning of all public institutions.
Karolina: Sometimes nonuments can be found indoors, such as this pillar with a German inscription in one of the schools in Wałcz, formerly the German town of Deutsch Krone. It was customary to place such inscriptions in schools to encourage pupils to behave in accordance with the social norms of the time. This particular inscription praises work as the highest value. After 1945, the inscription was covered with paint. More recently, it has been renovated and ‘reframed,’ as one of the examples of nonuments is called, not as a symbol of German hostility, but as part of the town’s multilayered heritage.
Michal: It is a memorial to the inhabitants of Handlová who fell in the First World War (the town was then known also as Krickerhau). It was erected in 1923 on the town square in Handlová, from where it was removed in the mid-1950s. Allegedly destroyed, it lay in the local cemetery until the second half of the 1960s, when a new monument was erected there—the Memorial to the Victims of the Handlová Strike of 1918 and the Victims of the Second World War. The damaged First World War memorial was then “attached” to the back of this new monument, which fulfills several categories of nonuments: rejected, removed, repurposed, or rebuilt.
The workshop “Popularizing Research Online” was held by Angelika Zanki, our manager and facilitator, who promotes the team’s activities and has completed numerous trainings in this field.
The workshop is a part of the NAWA’s STER Next Generation PhDs – Innovations program for doctoral students at the Anthropos Doctoral School. It provided participants with an opportunity to engage with key principles of effectively presenting and promoting academic work in digital spaces. In today’s digital age, communicating research clearly and professionally is increasingly important, and the session emphasized the growing significance of science communication for researchers.
Participants were introduced to the basics of science communication and explored how researchers can present themselves and their projects in ways that are accessible, accurate, and engaging. The workshop highlighted examples of good practice as well as common mistakes to avoid, stressing the importance of maintaining a professional online presence. It also covered strategies for managing websites and social media profiles related to research projects, including European-funded grants, and practical methods for promoting them effectively online.
The workshop was highly practical: participants actively contributed to discussions and prepared draft social media posts, applying the knowledge gained during the session.
Angelika’s experience helped create a well-structured and supportive environment, allowing participants to recognize the importance of science communication and to develop confidence in sharing their research with wider audiences.
The Anthropos Doctoral School, where the workshop was held, is located in the heart of Warsaw’s Old Town. On the day of the workshop, the area was especially magical, as the streets were beautifully illuminated and holiday decorations were lit up, creating a unique and festive atmosphere around the school.
ice rink set up in Warsaw’s Old Town Market Squarethe Anthropos Doctoral School building
We are excited to share that an essay by Karina Hoření has been published on the blog of the American Ethnological Society. It is part of their new collection, Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, edited by Salwa Tareen. The collection features essays by researchers from around the world, exploring the emotional side of anthropological practice and how fieldwork can deeply affect those who undertake it.
In this essay, Karina reflects on the emotional complexities of ethnographic research in post-war Liberec (formerly Reichenberg). Focusing on the experiences of Czech settlers who moved into houses formerly inhabited by Germans, she explores how archives and family memories reveal “ghosts” of the past. A key moment occurs during a follow-up interview with a participant, Josef, when she shares archival evidence of a German resident’s suicide in his family’s house. The encounter unexpectedly intersects with Josef’s own recent family tragedy, highlighting how personal and collective histories intertwine. Karina uses these experiences to discuss the ethical and emotional challenges of ethnography, the persistence of haunting legacies, and the limits of reconstructing the past.
At the beginning of December, our researcher, Karina Hoření, gave a presentation on her research as an invited speaker at a seminar titled “Ruins and Relics: Rhythms, Temporalities, and Trajectories of Change.” In her talk Fixation on Ruins-Fixation of Ruins Karina presented her thesis about ruins as the central space of the dominant Czech narrative about expulsion. The seminar took place at the Ethnological Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It was organised by the team behind the Zdivočelá země/Land gone wild project, implemented by a consortium of Czech research institutes. Both our projects are interested in post-war changes in the Czech borderlands and the enduring legacies of expulsion in the landscape, and this shared interest leads to long and passionate debates. Hopefully, it was not a last chance for our teams to meet and share our findings.
Karina Hoření during presentation, photo by Rose Smith
This was not our first encounter with Slovak cinema in our seminars. Some time last year, we discussed Mŕtvi nespievajú, a film by Andrej Lettrich depicting the realities of Slovak troops on the Eastern Front vis-à-vis their families at home. This time, we decided to delve into a solid classic: the first Czechoslovak Oscar-winning film, Obchod na korze [The Shop on Main Street] (1965).
The story, based on a book by Jiří Grossmann and directed by the iconic duo Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, depicts the entangled lives of the inhabitants of a small Slovak town. The film also has a Polish accent, as the Jewish shop owner is played by Ida Kamińska, a distinguished Polish-Jewish actress.
We discussed the specific wartime trajectory of Slovakia, a topic we had also touched upon while watching Mŕtvi nespievajú. In particular, we focused on attitudes toward the local fascist regime, the apparent idyll of occupation, and the ways in which various symbols in the film can be interpreted as excuses for collaboration. We also devoted attention to the film’s production context and to the striking absence of Germans on screen—while it is Slovaks who carry out the forced displacement of the town’s Jewish population.
Altogether, this helped us broaden our analytical horizon and reflect on questions such as how post-conflict societies deal with their pasts. After all, the war ended, yet the Slovak inhabitants of the town depicted in the film continued to live on without their Jewish neighbors.
In episode #101 of the Czechostacja podcast, Karolina and Jakub Medek explore interwar politics, Masaryk’s views on the many minorities living in Czechoslovakia, and his belief that it was possible to create not only a new state but eventually a new nation — the Czechoslovaks. The conversation was sparked by the recent opening of an envelope deposed in the National Archive in Prague: allegedly, it contained last words of Masaryk, and its opening became a spectacle unveiling the national myths and conventions. They also delve into the role and influence of Edvard Beneš, as well as the intellectuals with whom Masaryk eagerly debated and who simultaneously formed his intellectual support network.
A significant part of their conversation focuses on the Masaryk family — on what kind of father and husband Masaryk was, and on the crucial role played by his wife, Charlotte, an American with a strong personality.
And naturally — as always in Czechostacja — they wander into plenty of other fascinating topics along the way.
At the end of November, our researcher Michal Korhel participated in the 2025 Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), held in Washington, D.C. Together with Jakub Gałęziowski from the University of Warsaw, Michal co-organized a panel titled “Forced to Move: Remembering Children’s Displacement and Migration in WWII and Its Aftermath in East-Central Europe.” Bringing this panel to life felt especially meaningful, as it allowed the organizers to gather scholars who work with memories of some of the most vulnerable figures in wartime and postwar history – children whose lives were reshaped not only by violence, but also by the uncertain quiet that followed the end of the Second World War.
The panel explored a range of child experiences: Holocaust survivors in Hungary, young refugees in what is now Slovakia, Czech children from Lidice, and Polish children born to forced laborers and displaced persons. What united these stories was the recognition that the war’s end did not immediately bring safety or stability. For many children, the postwar period introduced new forms of coercion and control, particularly within institutions that claimed to act in their best interests.
In his own presentation, “Departing from Krickerhau, Arriving to Handlová: Migration in Childhood Memories of German Expellees and Slovak Settlers,” Michal returned to the microcosm of Handlová (formerly Krickerhau), a community deeply marked by the reshuffling of populations after 1945. Through oral history interviews, he traced the contrasting yet interconnected memories of two groups of children: the German inhabitants forced to leave their homes with only a small part of their possessions, and the Slovak settlers who arrived to occupy those same houses.
Beyond the academic sessions, Michal was also able to experience Washington, D.C. in a more personal way. He visited several of the city’s landmarks and museums, each offering a different perspective on American history and public memory. One of the most memorable moments of the trip was joining a Ghost and Graveyard tour in Alexandria – a lively and atmospheric walk that added an unexpected layer of storytelling to the visit.
Overall, the ASEEES Annual Convention offered a rich blend of scholarly exchange, new perspectives, and cultural exploration. For Michal, it was an opportunity not only to share his work and learn from others, but also to place these histories of displacement and memory within a broader global context.
Ghost and Graveyard Tour in AlexandriaMichal korhel and Jakub Gałęziowski at the ASEEES Annual ConventionLincoln MemorialMuseum of the Palestinian PeopleUnited States Holocaust Memorial MuseumUnited States Holocaust Memorial MuseumWashington Monument
In November, our researcher, Karina Hoření, co-organised an online workshop with Veronika Warzycha from the Leibniz Institute for Research for Society and Space. Karina and Veronika met this summer at the Memory Studies Association conference in Prague and found that they are both interested in industrial heritage in the Czech-Polish-German borderlands. While Karina is focused on material legacies of textile production in northern Bohemia, Veronika´s PhD project is about twin cities on the Oder/Odra river and how industry is constructed as their shared heritage. Already in Prague, they decided to continue their conversation and met in November to talk for hours about new and old borders, their impacts, and their legacies in this region. This seminar is proof that connections established at international conferences can be further developed. It certainly was not the last meeting.
German-Polish border on the Oder-Odra river, author: V. Warzycharemnants of textile factory in Nové Město pod Smrkemsnapshot from fieldwork, author: V. Warzycha
Discover Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska’s thoughtful vignette exploring how the idea of Pomerania is shaped both personally and politically. Drawing on her own memories and experiences, she reflects on shifting perceptions of the region and offers fresh insights into what Pomerania means today. Read the full post to see how intimate stories and administrative borders come together to define a place.
