Photo credit:

Polnischer Flüchtlingstreck auf einer Landstraße in Polen 1939. Foto: Hans Friedrich Hübner, Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung, Polnischer Flüchtlingstreck auf einer Landstraße in Polen 1939. Foto: Hans Friedrich Hübner, Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Migration (hi)stories

European history is a history of migrations. This is especially true for the history of Eastern Europe. Join us in an exploration of this multifaceted and emotionally charged topic, which still polarizes people to this day. Spanning centuries and a vast array of themes, these stories extend from the medieval and early modern settlement of Central and Western European emigrants in the rural Eastern and East Central European region to the emigration and urbanization of the 19th century, to the complex mass-expulsions and flight of the 20th century and include events of recent history.

Introduction

Migration
Introduction
The term migration refers to spatial movements of people. But not every change of location is considered migration. Exactly which phenomena and processes of regional mobility are understood as migration in scientific, political, media or public debates is contested and subject to constant change.
Jochen Oltmer
Emigration, Forced Migration, and the Iron Curtain
Migration History in Eastern Europe since the Late 19th Century
Introduction
Eastern Europe has been a "migration hot spot" since the late 19th century: Initially as a core area of overseas emigration, then of ethnic forced migration after the end of World War I. Emigration during the Cold War was nearly impossible. Today, many countries in this region benefit from the...
Jannis Panagiotidis
Religious Migrations
Introduction
What do the Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, the American director Woody Allen and the French chansonnier Charles Aznavour have in common?
Tobias Weger

Migration stories around Steinort / Sztynort Castle

Biographies of people, places and things

17 portraits that tell of the fate of the last lord of the castle, Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff, his family and the villagers - before and after 1945. And of enthusiasts who are bringing the dilapidated castle back to life.

All articles

Pandemic and Migration in Eastern Europe

An interview with Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg

To the video

Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, Standbild des Interview-Films

Deeper insights

Background article
The Uprooted Ones – Lemkos in Galicia and abroad
The small, private Museum of Lemko Culture in Zyndranowa is situated on the far periphery of southeastern Poland, yet it is a destination for many travelers, mainly from western and northern Poland, but also from other parts of the country and from abroad. For many, a visit here is connected with...
Beata Halicka
Background article
Migration to Southeast Europe in the 18th Century
A German Master Miller in a Hungarian Village
Migration stories can be success stories. Migration is often associated with people’s desire to improve their living situation. However, this wish does not always come true, and so migration stories are often marked by disappointments and failures – like that of Michael Kreutzer.
Xenia Fink
Background article
Summer 1941: Jews from the Baltic States flee for their lives
The long shadow of the past. Only a few Jews from Lithuania and Latvia managed to escape the Holocaust in the Baltics. Here are some of their accounts and the reasons for their difficult escape.
Joachim Tauber
Background article
Russian-German history as migration history
Russian Germans are a global minority. Their history is often characterized by migration within and outside the Russian Empire spanning several generations. In the last third of the 19th century, popular migration destinations included North and South America as well as new settlement areas in...
Jannis Panagiotidis
Background article
Spoon Stories
An everyday object as an anchor for personal memories
What do you take with you when you are forced to flee your home empty-handed? Which object will be indispensable in everyday life and vital for emergencies? An exhibition project by the consultant for cultural affairs Magdalena Oxfort shows the role that spoons, of all things, can play in people's...
Background article
The History of the German-speaking Volhynians as Part of a Global Migration History
From the mid-nineteenth century onward, innovations such as steam navigation and the advent of the railroad led to a sharp increase in global migration movements. The German-speaking Volhynians were part of this development, which moved between the ideal-typical poles of voluntary and forced...
Jan Musekamp
Background article
Abraham Hannibal
How a black African became a nobleman in the time of the slave trade in the Russian Empire
Abraham Petrovič Hannibal (circa 1696-1781) was a central figure during the early stages of the African Diaspora in Russia. He was one of the first Russian Enlightenment thinkers and the great-grandfather of the most important poet and creator of the modern Russian language, Alexander Pushkin.
Svetlana Boltovska
Background article
Adam Mickiewicz
Polish pilgrim and European migrant
Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish romantic, poet, translator and journalist, was a migrant for most of his life. He also travelled to Berlin, Rome, Constantinople and other places for pleasure, scientific purposes and on political missions. These frequent changes of location show a mobile and...
Jana Mende

„We, too, are stepping down from our role“

Between staying and leaving - the German Theater in Temirtau and the Germans in the Soviet Union

A web documentary

To the web documentary

Introduction

Screenshot aus der Webdoku zum Deutschen Theater in Temirtau, es handelt sich um eine Bildmontage historischer Fotos, die tanzende Menschen vor architektonischen Umrissen zeigt

Neumann Family

An East Upper Silesian Story of Flight and Integration

The web documentary invites you to explore a family story between farewell and new beginnings in and after World War II.

To the Web Documentary

Introduction

Objects tell migration stories

Wroclaw - Shanghai - Munich
A wardrobe trunk testifies to the fate of a Wroclaw Jew
Object story
A special object was donated to the Silesian Museum in Görlitz in November 2014: a large, solidly built wardrobe trunk. This imposing piece of luggage and furniture bears the markings of long journeys and intensive use. In 1939, it accompanied Herbert Schneidemann on his escape to Shanghai.
Markus Bauer
Down the Danube in the Ulm Box
Object story
A flat-bottomed wooden boat with a hut on top, sides painted in black and white stripes, and two very long oars at the front and back – that's an "Ulmer Schachtel" (Ulm box). This vessel, which seems curious today, was once an important means of transport on the Danube.
DZM-Team
Edina's beach bag
"I felt the uprooting and horror in Edina's soul."
Object story
A blue and white striped bag with white handles - at first glance an inconspicuous beach bag. But it tells the moving story of the then 33-year-old Edina Rizvanović's flight from what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina to Ulm.
DZM-Team
Max Mannheimer and his silver-gray Tatra 87
Object story
Max Mannheimer (1920-2016) was an institution, as a painter and storyteller, as a Holocaust survivor and chairman of the Dachau Camp Community.
Peter Becher
A Transylvanian church fur from South Africa
Object story
Among the numerous pieces of traditional costume at the Transylvanian Museum in Gundelsheim is one whose change of ownership and the resulting journey render it a fitting symbol of the collective fate of entire families, indeed entire Saxon village communities from northern Transylvania in the 20th...
Irmgard Sedler
Moving Piety
History of a Silesian crib
Object story
The family crib was so important to his father that he took it with him when he emigrated to the USA. The report of a donor reveals what happened between its production in Waldenburg and the return to Europe, which made its donation to Haus Schlesien in Königswinter possible.
Silke Findeisen

Introduction

Migration stories around Steinort / Sztynort Castle

Pandemic and Migration in Eastern Europe

Deeper insights

The Uprooted Ones – Lemkos in Galicia and abroad

Migration to Southeast Europe in the 18th Century

Summer 1941: Jews from the Baltic States flee for their lives

Russian-German history as migration history

Spoon Stories

The History of the German-speaking Volhynians as Part of a Global Migration History

Abraham Hannibal

Adam Mickiewicz

„We, too, are stepping down from our role“

Neumann Family

Objects tell migration stories