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Webdocu
"We, too, are stepping down from our role"
Web documentary about the German Drama Theater in Temirtau and the Germans in the Soviet Union between staying and leaving.
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Background article
Agata, Dorota, Iwona, Jolanta
"What luck that we had this kindergarten!" All four say. That was in the early 1970s. Agata and Jolanta now live in Germany, Dorota and Iwona have stayed in Masuria. Lehndorff Castle, the "Pałac", was a place they all felt happy. In those stately rooms they had a feeling of security and comfort, they played among the old oaks, went swimming in the lake. It was a microcosm away from the adult world with its worries and traumas.
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Introduction
Emigration, Forced Migration, and the Iron Curtain
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 European Union's Freedom of Movement policy.
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Location portrait
Kharkiv Forest Park (Lisopark)
Kharkiv Forest Park is considered the largest of its kind in Ukraine and one of the country’s crown-ing jewels in terms of natural beauty. Old oaks, lindens, maples, spruces, and pines grow here.
In addition to the rich flora and fauna, the park offers numerous recreational facilities and a chil-dren's railroad, the Little Southern Railway, which was inaugurated in 1940.
There are also a number of monuments in the park. In 2000, a Ukrainian-Polish memorial was erected here to commemorate the victims of totalitarianism. The monument features columns with the names of Soviet citizens and Polish soldiers who were shot by the NKVD in the years 1938-1940 and interred in mass graves in the forest park. According to various sources, more than 10000 victims lie buried here. The memorial site Memorial'nyj kompleks Slavy (Memorial Complex of Glory) from 1977 is one of the key sites of remembrance of the Second World War in Kharkiv. This place is dedicated to the Soviet soldiers and civil-ians who died during the Second World War.
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Biography
Maria Zarębska
When Maria Zarębska was born, in July 1948, the village of Sztynort was still scarred by war. A few Masurian families had remained living there, but most of the inhabitants – like Maria's parents – were newcomers. Everyone was struggling to survive, to get along with each other, to find their way in socialist Poland. For a child like Maria, all this was "normal." The curious girl later became an avid and perceptive chronicler.
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Interview (video)
Nicolaus Copernicus: The state of source material and the history of research
Prof. Dr. Andreas Kühne was the co-editor of the 2019 edition of the Complete Works of Nicolaus Copernicus. In this interview, he describes what we can learn about Copernicus from the available sources and how the figure of Copernicus came to be politicized. He also describes how research into Copernicus could lead to new findings.
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Biography
On foot and by train from Silesia to West Germany
In a report, 24-year-old Hilda J.-S. describes her resettlement from Rohnstock (Silesia) to Rosellen on the Lower Rhine area in the summer of 1946.
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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 Siberia and Kazakhstan. It was here that all Russian Germans were then exiled during and after the Second World War. Since the latest period of resettlement in the 1980s and 1990s, most Russian Germans have settled in Germany.
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Location portrait
Sarzhyn Yar
Sarzhyn Yar is a 12 km-long gorge to the north of Kharkiv, which is known for its mineral water spring. The most distinguishing landmark of Sarzhyn Yar is a futuristic concrete pavilion on three pillars, which was designed by the architect V. S. Vasiliev and built in the 1960s.
In 2018, the Sarzhyn Yar recreation area from the embankment to the mineral water spring was restored. Seven ponds were created on three different levels, and a children's playground, a sports field, a park landscape, and a new staircase to the "Botanical Garden" metro station were built. The canopy over the spring was also reconstructed and the pumping stations and fountains repaired.
On August 30, 2022, shells hit one of the buildings of Sarzhyn Yar, killing a woman who had come to the spring to fetch water.
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Map and text
The Copernican network
Despite living in relative isolation, Copernicus maintained a number of significant contacts during his time as a scholar and cleric.
Astronomers from many parts of Europe carried on his work after his death.
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Biography
The Four Lehndorff Daughters
"I lost my home," Vera von Lehndorff once said, "but lost childhood is a better description." When her father was executed on September 4, 1944, she was five years old. Her sister Eleonore, "Nona," was six and a half, and Gabriele was two. Catharina was only 19 days old; she was born in the Torgau prison hospital. The Nazis had taken the girls and their mother Gottliebe into custody, a practice known in German as "Sippenhaft” or “kin liability". It was a traumatic time and was by no means over when the war ended in 1945.
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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 migration and was significantly influenced by the enforcement of the ethnonational principle. This article focuses on the emigration movements of this group from the Russian governorate of Volhynia in the period between the 1860s and the First World War. The subsequent forced migrations of the German-speaking Volhynians are also briefly discussed.
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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 questions of identity and with the search for traces of family history. At the open-air museum, visitors can experience, among other things, the farm of the Gocz family and learn a great deal about the life of the villagers.