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Editorial
A Wounded City
What was the first day of the war like in Kharkiv? How has the city changed as a result of the devastating attack on Ukraine? How do people experience the war? Kharkiv residents were asked about this in the first months after February 24, 2022.
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Góra Kalwaria or Ger
Góra Kalwaria was one of many shtetls in Poland whose Jewish life disappeared in the wake of WW II. Also goods of Jewish culture suffered immense losses. Particularly interesting is the wartime fate of library owned by tzaddik's family Alter. The history of its dispersal during WW II is exemplary for many Jewish library collections in Nazi-occupied Europe.
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Biography
Hannah Wadle
In 2009, Hannah Wadle settled in Sztynort to do research for her doctoral thesis – and stayed for a whole year. Gradually, her cautious explorations turned into familiarity and what began as a purely academic interest became a dedicated personal commitment to the town and its people. She learned to see the Lehndorff manor house from many perspectives. In 2017, she founded a cultural festival, and since then the palace has come to life every August.
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Object story
Home in a trunk of clothes - the Garlik family's traditional costume suitcase
This suitcase has traveled far – not, as one might expect, after the Second World War, but rather in the decades after the flight of the Nessner family. It was used to transport the traditional costumes of a Danube Swabian dance troupe from Baden-Württemberg as they toured to enclaves of Danube Swabians scattered around the world.
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Introduction
Jews in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe
The twentieth century brought monumental changes and unprecedented challenges to the East-European Jewry. Its story is told here in the voices of six Jewish women, whose lives were marked by its turbulent course.
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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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Memorials in Wrocław
The Jewish community in Breslau, which was the third-largest in the German Reich in 1925, was forgotten for many years. However, after 1989, new interest in local history began to emerge in Wrocław, Poland. Nowadays, monuments and a commemorative procession serve as reminders of the Jewish people who lived in Breslau (the pre-1945 German name for Wrocław) during the pre-war period.
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Object story
Not a Moment to Lose
In 1944, the entire German-speaking population of the village of Novo Selo in Yugoslavia flee for their their lives as the Red Army approaches. Among them is the Neuburger family, who travel by horse-drawn wagon via Hungary to Austria.
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Location portrait
Pechenihy Reservoir, Staryi Saltiv
The Pechenihy Reservoir and the adjoining village of Staryi Saltiv are located about 50 kilometers from Kharkiv and form one of its recreational areas. The Pechenihy Reservoir was created between 1958 and 1962 on the Siverkyi Donets River. It is the main source of water supply for Kharkiv and agriculture east of the city.
In the first weeks of the war, the Ukrainian armed forces blew up the bridge on the dam over the Siverkyi Donets in Staryi Saltiv to make it more difficult for the invading Russian forces to reach Kharkiv. On September 20, 2022, as a result of numerous attacks by the Russian military, the upper sluice of the Pechenihy Dam in the Kharkiv region and part of the bridge were destroyed, severing the connection between Kharkiv and the municipality of Vovchansk.
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Places of commemoration of the Shoa in Szeged, Hungary
The Jewish community of Szeged in Hungary has a rich heritage dating back two centuries. Many of their descendants perished in the Holocaust, when Szeged was made the main deportation center for the region. The purpose of the following post is to showcase the Holocaust memorials erected by the locals.
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Return and Redemption
This text highlights the diverse landscape of Hasidism and contemporary Hasidic pilgrimage in Poland and Ukraine.
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Spoon Stories
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 lives when they face exceptional circumstances and also in their memory of these events.
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Editorial
Steinort – a European place of remembrance
Steinort is a European place of remembrance, because it is a place where the most diverse stories and memories intersect, intertwine, and overlap. The interview project by Ulla Lachauer and Agata Kern explores these subjective strands of memory and reveals a number of different cultures of remembrance.
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Object story
Symbols of enduring hope
When they fled, many refugees hoped that they would be able to return later. A bunch of keys from Marienburg, which has been preserved in the West Prussian State Museum, bears witness to this hope.
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The Copernicus anniversary year of 1973 in East Germany
In East Germany, the Copernicus anniversary was marked by a range of ceremonies and receptions. The aim was to highlight positive relations between Germany and Poland, with Copernicus being presented as a pioneer for the socialist state’s worldview.
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The Copernicus anniversary year of 1973 in West Germany
In West Germany, the Copernicus anniversary was coordinated and organized centrally. A lot of effort was put in to ensure that the celebrations would have a wide-reaching impact. Organizations representing those displaced from East and West Prussia played a special role in the celebrations.
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The Lehndorff Family and the East Prussian Nobility
The East Prussian noble Lehndorff family can be traced back to the 13th century. The history and culture of remembrance around the family are exemplary for many other noble families in Eastern Europe. Our author Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg explains the role of commemorating the nobility and calls for a new approach to regional history.
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Object story
The linen dresser
A simple chest of drawers, which came from the Steinort manor house, probably from the servants' quarters. In 1945 it was still quite new, made of pine, unpainted. Ten years ago, an old gentleman donated it to the Museum of Folklore in Węgorzewo, formerly Angerburg, along with other things he had taken from the manor after the end of the war.
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Biography
Verus von Plotho
"There was no culture of remembrance in my family," says Verus von Plotho. He grew up in a cosmopolitan world. He was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1969 and grew up in Munich. His mother is Gabriele Freifrau von Plotho, the third daughter of Heinrich and Gottliebe von Lehndorff. There was hardly any talk at home about his grandfather and his resistance to Hitler, nor about his earlier life at Steinort Castle. Grandson Verus grew up – unencumbered – in the shadow of a dramatic past.