The Order of Things
German items in Poland’s Western Territories
A container with the German label “Salz” (salt) in a Wrocław kitchen; a map of Western Poland with German place names crossed-out and new ones hand-written in Polish. These things found in the region today point to its pre-war German past. What stories, practices and emotions do they evoke?
The border changes decided by the leaders of the Anti-Hitler Coalition at the conferences in Tehran (1943), Yalta, and Potsdam (1945) profoundly altered the geopolitical landscape of Central Europe and kept the region in motion. Since Poland’s pre-war Eastern borderlands had been incorporated into the Soviet Union’s Western republics, the Polish state was compensated with territories in the North and West that had formerly been part of Germany. These areas, referred to today in Poland as the or just the “Western Territories,” included most of former Silesia, Eastern Brandenburg, Eastern Pomerania, and the Southern part of East Prussia.
Recovered Territories
pol. Kresy Zachodnie, pol. Ziemie Odzyskane, deu. Wiedergewonnene Gebiete, pol. Ziemie Powracające, pol. Ziemie Postulowane, pol. Ziemie Zachodnie i Północne, eng. Returning Territories, eng. Postulated Territories, eng. Western and Northern Territories, eng. Western Borderlands, eng. Regained Lands, pol. Ziemie Nowe, pol. Ziemie Uzyskane
The term 'Recovered Territories' (Polish: Ziemie Odzyskane) was used in the People's Republic of Poland for the former eastern and north-eastern territories of the German Reich (including the Free City of Gdansk), which were annexed to Poland after the end of the Second World War. The term, which also gave its name to the “Ministry for the Recovered Territories” set up specifically for their interests in 1945-1949, alluded to the historical affiliation of these territories to Polish rule - which was not always clear and in some cases dated back several centuries. However, the term was officially used as early as 1938 in relation to the occupation of the former Czechoslovakian Olsztyn region. Postulates for the incorporation of the Reich territories were already raised during the Second World War, to which one of the numerous other Polish terms - “Ziemie Postulowane” (“Postulated Territories”) - alluded. The takeover of the eastern territories of the German Reich was perceived in Poland as a kind of compensation for the lost eastern territories.
The illustration shows a propaganda poster by an unknown author, published by the Wojewódzki Urząd Informacji i Propagandy in 1945.
Post-war migration and the legacy of objects in Poland’s western territories
The redrawing of borders triggered large-scale migrations that reshaped the populations and socio-cultural composition of the affected areas. Germans whose homelands in the newly designated Polish territories lay outside of Germany’s post-war borders were forced to leave. At the same time, millions of Poles were resettled into these regions from territories annexed by the Soviet Union, while others were encouraged to migrate to the Western Territories from other regions of Poland or from abroad in order to establish a strong Polish presence there. These migrations, both forced and voluntary, created a complex mosaic of displacement and re-settlement that profoundly influenced the social, cultural, and demographic fabric of Poland’s new Western Territories.
This population movement also marked the beginning of relationships between people who had initially been either strangers or even antagonistic towards each other. In many cases, Polish migrants experienced a shift in their social status. These ranged from social decline, for example, where once-wealthy noble families were forced to move into small apartments, to social improvement, for example, where peasants who had formerly been landless received their own farms. The population movement also established a new relationship between people and the objects, animals, and environments they found in the Western Territories. Our research on the relationship between pre-war objects and contemporary residents of Wrocław and Szczecin, the two largest cities of Poland’s Western Territories, shows that this process continues to this day.1 Pre-war objects still prompt practices and provoke emotions that are specific to the region.
The settlers who arrived in Poland’s Western Territories constituted a heterogeneous group in terms of their motives for migration, their origins, and their socioeconomic status. However, they were all confronted with the cultural unfamiliarity of these territories that had, until recently, been German. According to official state propaganda, the Polish settlers arrived in “originally Polish,” “recovered lands.” In reality, however, these lands had been inhabited for centuries by a mostly German-speaking population. The settlers’ confrontation with the materiality of Wrocław and Szczecin thus evoked feelings of unease. The large-scale government campaigns of so-called “de-Germanization” primarily aimed to reduce the cultural “foreignness” of the region by removing German or Prussian monuments as well as German inscriptions from the built environment. But many of the objects “inherited” from the German era remained in use despite the government’s anti-German propaganda, because of their practicality and post-war shortages. Over the years, they were worn out, repurposed or repaired, and became surrounded by new items produced after the war.
Today’s residents of Wrocław and Szczecin live among objects, the biographies of which are often overlooked in everyday life. Occasionally, however, a German inscription on a coffee pot or a clothes hanger reveals its pre-war origin. Our research conducted in Szczecin and Wrocław from 2019 to 2023 prompted a reflective look at objects from daily life. We knocked on the doors of apartments and houses in pre-war neighborhoods and asked their residents to talk about the cities’ legacy. Not everyone agreed to an interview, but several people invited us into their homes, giving us the opportunity to ask about family histories—primarily post-war migrations and subsequent experiences – and, in a further step, about a broad category of meaningful objects, including “poniemieckie”, i.e. formerly German,2 items and the stories behind them.
We focused on objects that have survived to the present day, observing what practices they prompt among residents of this part of Poland. In one Wrocław house, we looked at a painting still hanging on the same wall where it had been displayed before the war. The Polish owners had shared the house for several months after the war with its former German owners and so decided to honor their request to leave the painting where it was. Some people showed us damaged or incomplete objects that they continued to value as a kind of “souvenir of the house’s history.” Items included the fragment of a knife unearthed in the backyard or pieces of newspaper found in the wall during a renovation project and then carefully framed and hung above the kitchen table.
These objects are fragile witnesses to the pre-war history of Wrocław and Szczecin, as well as their postwar inhabitants—a history that remained obscured for many decades due to the political myths and propaganda of communist Poland. It was only with the end of communist rule in 1989, accompanied by the end of censorship, that alternative narratives about the region became possible. This was aided by writers, scholars, and social activists who stimulated interest in uncovering a fuller and more truthful picture of the local past. Among our interlocutors, pre-war objects were often highly valued and sought after. Marcin, for instance, spent years searching for an apartment in a pre-war tenement in Szczecin, ultimately choosing one that had retained even its original door handles. The formerly German objects were a valuable resource, since they were something distinctive and unique to the region. However, other attitudes continued to exist, such as the denial of, or even an aversion toward, the region’s German past, though on a smaller scale.
Social distinction through material objects
These relationships between “Polish” people and “German” objects began immediately after the war. It involved the appropriation of formerly German property by new arrivals, who made it their own—or, to use Robert Traba’s phrase, created a “sense of mine-ness.”3 Although we have analyzed various perceptions of the relevant objects and their functions,4 in this article we would like to focus on their perception in relation to the comprehension and legitimization of the unusual transmission of such property. The figure of the owner is crucial here.
During our fieldwork in Wrocław, we met Elzbieta, who recounted a story from her past as a young ethnographer traveling in Lower Silesia. She told us about a blacksmith who, upon arriving in the region after the war, took over an entire forge along with its tools from his pre-war predecessor. Elzbieta remarked, “He stepped into the right place.”
Are there other examples of such perceived “rightness”? When do they occur, and what do they relate to? We asked ourselves these questions and noticed that the appropriation of objects is considered “right” (pl. właściwe) if the old and new owners share certain similarities that link past and present. These similarities might include a profession, a skill, and in some cases affiliation to a broader category - that of social class. A compelling example comes from Magda, who was captivated by the pre-war floor tiles in her friend’s apartment in Wrocław. By means of a pre-war address book she discovered that the apartment’s former occupants were a civil servant and a professor. Remarkably, these professions mirrored those of her friend, a civil servant, and her friend’s husband, an academic. The idea that an object might “re-appear” after the war in a similar social environment and be owned by people similar to its pre-war owners evoked excitement and satisfaction among our interviewees. It was considered a lucky twist of fate.
But what about the opposite situation, when an object ended up in a very different social environment? One of our interviewees, Wanda, a resident of an apartment in a villa, recalled its condition at the time of her family’s arrival in the early 1960s: “The carter had settled there. (…) I can only tell you that (…) my mother-in-law moved us in, and she had to shovel the dirt off the windowsills.” She described the negligence of the previous Polish tenant, suggesting that this was because he came from a lower class. There was a widespread belief that the more affluent districts of the city and buildings taken over by the municipality were deteriorating because their residents belonged to lower social classes. It was often argued that these settlers lacked the knowledge and skills to appreciate and properly maintain the properties. However, the condition of the buildings was largely dependent on decisions made at the municipal level, such as the decision to renovate tenement houses and make the necessary financial investments.
The presumed inability to take proper care of things is a frequent subject of negative comments observed today on the Internet and social media. On the profile “History from the Dumpsters of Breslau,” an Instagrammer displays items he found in the garbage. People are often criticized for discarding objects that might be valuable. These comments carry an unspoken implication: someone failed to recognize the value of these things, lacking the necessary knowledge; the item therefore ended up in the “wrong” hands.
These phenomena might inspire reflections on class distinctions in Poland, both during the communist era and today,5 as well as on the role of the post-war appropriation of objects and social mobility. However, we would like to highlight the role of the imagined social context of an object in perceiving the transfer of property being analyzed. The concept of the “order of things” (pl.: porządek rzeczy), proposed by us, is based on the stories told by our interlocutors. It illustrates how the evaluation of the object’s condition is linked to its owner and their perceived ability to take care of it—or not. When an object’s social context (made up of its past and present owners) is “restored”, it is often assumed that this goes hand in hand with “proper” care, which in turn creates a sense that an interrupted continuity has been reconstructed. This also serves to legitimate an uncertain sense of ownership.
Agata described the visit of a pre-war German resident of a villa in Wrocław in the 1990s. When he asked to see his former home, she invited him inside. She humorously recounted the atmosphere of the meeting: the mutual description of objects that were not in their immediate environment but belonged to their families and served as indicators of the social status of both interlocutors, such as signet rings and paintings depicting hunting scenes. Agata had the impression that the previous owner was satisfied when he observed who owned his family’s former villa now. He found himself “in a place in which the past affirmed by them [the previous owners] also mattered. It wasn’t really their past, but it was shared by a certain social class. And it is not about the nobility or whatever you call it, but the fact that the past and its values are appreciated.” Agata's observation that the former owner felt satisfaction when he saw the condition of the property that once belonged to his family can be considered a form of symbolic reparation and a way of legitimizing the disruptive transfer of ownership after 1945.
Our research has shown that the German past of Wrocław and Szczecin remains a topic relevant to the cities’ current residents. Objects left behind by the former German citizens still have an impact on contemporary residents: to this day, they contribute to identity formation, are used for social distinction, fill gaps in interrupted post-migration biographies and evoke strong emotions.
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Authors
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Kurpiel, Anna/Maniak, Katarzyna: Porządek rzeczy: Relacje z przedwojennymi przedmiotami na ziemiach zachodnich (przypadek Wrocławia i Szczecina). Fotografie Ł. Skąpski. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, Wydawnictwo Akademii Sztuki 2023; Kurpiel, Anna/Maniak, Katarzyna: Adopted Heritage and the Rightness of Things: The ‘Uncanny’ in the Creation of Home and Belonging. In: Koskinen-Koivisto, Eerika et al. (eds.): Reconstructing Homes. Affective Materiality and Atmospheres of Belonging. New York, Oxford 2024, pp. 117–133.
