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Organizations
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Masuria
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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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Background article
Antje Vollmer
She is known as a Green Party politician and for her longstanding role as Vice President of the German Bundestag. After retiring in 2005, she became a freelance author. Her first book project “Doppelleben” (Double Life) tells the story of Heinrich von Lehndorff, one of the conspirators of the events of 20 July 1944 , and his wife Gottliebe. It is a moving biography of two young aristocrats that tells of their daring and their love.
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Biography
Bettina Bouresh
"I’m a typical post-war child," says Bettina Bouresh. Born in 1950, she grew up burdened with German guilt and the traumas of her mother's family, who had lived in Allenstein until 1945. She herself felt homeless for a long time. Until one day she found her place: in Masuria. Here she found a home – and in Steinort Palace her life’s work. Today she is vice-chairwoman of the Lehndorff Society.
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Cultural office
Cultural Office for Russian Germans
Who are the Russian Germans? What were their experiences in the Soviet Union? How has their integration in Germany taken shape in the past and how is it continuing to evolve today? Russian-German repatriates are one of the largest migrant groups in Germany. Nevertheless, the majority of the...
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Image database
Image catalogue of the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe – Institute of the Leibniz Association
In the online database of the Image Archive you will find the previously inventoried and digitized image materials from the collections of the Herder Institute as well as additional image sources from joint indexing and digitization projects with cooperation partners. Further analog and digital...
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Kunst - Mensch - System ("Art - man - system")
Adaptation or resistance: these were the two poles between which many artists in the Soviet Union moved. The exhibition "Kunst - Mensch - System" ("Art - man - system") uses the example of the sculptor Jakob Wedel to show the influence the totalitarian regime had on an artist's work and everyday...
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My name is Eugen
"Thirteen young Russian Germans bear the name Eugen. They have never met each other, yet they share a striking experience: they were all formerly called Evgenij. Their stories and experiences are unique. The author Eugen Litwinow travelled with them into the past, sharing long conversations about...
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Permanent exhibition of the East Prussian state museum
East Prussia: Formerly the easternmost German province, today it covers parts of Poland, Russia and Lithuania. With its family-friendly presentation style and high-quality, informative exhibits, the East Prussian state museum conveys as complete a picture as possible of the history, art, culture and...
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Recommended Reading: Die heutige Ukraine und ihre sowjetischen Wurzeln (Today's Ukraine and its Soviet Roots)
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has been in the focus of world attention. Is now the hour for experts on Ukraine to be recognized and heard? The war has made many people aware of how little they actually know about this country and its history. To fill this knowledge gap or to...
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Biography
Stefan Tymiec Junior
Stefan Tymiec was born in Sztynort in July 1950. “I had a happy childhood”, he says. He hardly felt anything of the tragedies that his parents had lived through. His mother was German and remained in her homeland in 1945. His father was Ukrainian, one of many people who had been forcibly resettled from southeastern Poland. Stefan's childhood happiness lasted eight years, then the family set off for the West.
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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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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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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.