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Organizations
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External Image
Projekttypen
Infrastructure project | Transfer project | Cultural education and communication project
Kulturelle Vielfalt im Donauraum ("Cultural Diversity in the Danube Region")
Migration, cultural diversity and multiethnic coexistence are topics of ongoing social relevance. For this reason, the project Kulturelle Vielfalt im Donauraum ("Cultural Diversity in the Danube Region") at the Danube Swabian Museum (DZM) aimed to develop new formats to convey Danube Swabian history...
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Biography
Liberation from forced labor and the search for a new home
21-year-old Janina Jagodzińska describes the arduous beginning of 1945 in Poland's new western territories.
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Einrichtungstyp
Library | Archive
Martin Opitz Library
The Martin Opitz Library (MOB) is the central library for German culture and history in Eastern Europe. It collects literature from all areas of East-Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The main focus of the collections is on the regions that today form western Poland and the Kaliningrad...
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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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Recherchetooltyp
Online library catalog
Online Catalog of the Martin Opitz Library
The online catalog of the Martin Opitz Library is based on the software VuFind and allows you to search the library's entire book and journal holdings, a constantly growing sub-collection of the archive and numerous external datasets. If you would like to search this institution's extensive...
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Thementexttyp
Background article
Post-War Jewish Migration from the USSR and the refuseniki movement
The post-WW II Jewish migration from the Soviet Union (and also after its dissolution) is one of the largest in modern history. Altogether 2.75 million Soviet Jews left the USSR for Israel, the United States, Germany and elsewhere. The position of the Soviet state with respect to emigration was remarkably ambivalent: in some cases, it was allowed and even encouraged, in others, others; it was controlled and strongly limited. The Jewish emigration movement that arose in the late 1960s and continued throughout the 1970s-1980s became an example of resistance and activism within the authoritarian system, which increasingly alerted international attention. In one way or another, it affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and changed the appearance of many cities and towns within the Soviet Union and outside it.
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SILESIAN PLACES OF REMEMBRANCE - THE PERMANENT EXHIBITION OF HAUS SCHLESIEN
Eight thematic modules, around 300 objects on 300 square metres, 15 interactive media and nine hands-on stations and two audio tours - the exhibition presentation in HAUS SCHLESIEN is as diverse as the region of Silesia itself. On the basis of selected Silesian Silesian places of remembrance, the...
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Online atlas
Schlesien im Spiegel der Geschichte ("Silesia in the mirror of history")
Silesia: a varied landscape and a heterogeneous society with a rich culture and history. HAUS SCHLESIEN's interactive online portal "Schlesien im Spiegel der Geschichte" ("Silesia in the Mirror of History") invites you on a rich journey of discovery. Here you can follow traces of Silesian culture,...
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Object story
Silent witness
Nothing is more closely connected with the circumstances of flight and expulsion than the experience of loss. Three touching objects from the years 1944/1945, which are now in the East Prussian state museum with German-Baltic department in Lüneburg, bear witness to this.
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Publikationsreihentyp
Journal
Spiegelungen (“Reflections”)
Global developments, crises, and conflicts usually occur initially in local and regional areas, or are mirrored or delayed there. This is why the academic journal “Spiegelungen” (“Reflections”) of the Institute for German Culture and History of Southeastern Europe (IKGS) directs its...
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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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Thementexttyp
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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Online publication
The Hoffmann family estate
The Hoffman estate, which has been made accessible through a cooperation project between HAUS SCHLESIEN and the Martin Opitz Library, tells a family’s history, which spans a century and hundreds of kilometers, from Lower Silesia to the Rhine. More than 500 photographs, documents and memoirs of...
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Editorial
The Sounds of Bukovina
A region with many voices: The cultural diversity of Bukovina is particularly evident in its little-known music and singing culture – past and present. Twelve musical contributions provide an insight into the musical history of a multifaceted landscape on the northeastern edge of the Carpathians.
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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.
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Online publication
The ebook "Russian-German Cultural History"
The digital ebook "Russian-German Cultural History" is a digital study and workbook developed by the Institute for Digital Learning in cooperation with the Museum for Russian-German Cultural History. In telling the story of the Russian-Germans, it shows how experiences such as being on the move,...
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Typisch schlesisch!? ("Typically Silesian!?")
"Is there such thing as a Silesian identity, and if so, how many?" The touring exhibition "Typically Silesian", which is available for loan, grapples with this question, which actually contains three other questions, namely, “where is Silesia?”, “who is Silesian?” and “what is typically...
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Object story
With Grandma's Laundry Basket, Running for our Lives
A nondescript woven wicker basket stands in the storeroom of the Martin Opitz Library in Herne. The handles on either side indicate that it might once have served as a laundry basket. With its four rather makeshift wheels, however, the basket tells more than just a family story; it also tells of local history and a story of escape.
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Projekttypen
Intercultural project
YouthSummerWorkshop Detmold
The workshop for youth leaders, which is organized by the Cultural Advisor for Russian Germans and takes place annually in the summer in Detmold, serves as a networking event, bringing together youth organizations from the Ukraine, the Russian Federation and Germany. A further aim is the development...
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Zu Hause und doch fremd ("At home and yet foreign")
At home and yet foreign – that was how it felt for millions of Germans who had fled or been driven out of Silesia and now had to create a new existence for themselves from scratch in the Federal Republic of Germany or the GDR. This was also the feeling of the Poles who had to relocate to Silesia,...