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Articles
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Object story
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"What you can carry on your own"
On November 18, 1944, nine-year-old Elsa Beck flees the Hungarian village of Máriakéménd with her mother and sister. Elsa's mother allows her to take with her what she can carry herself. Elsa decides to take her school suitcase. Today, this is held in the Danube Swabian Central Museum in Ulm.
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A toolbox with a secret compartment
Many museum objects hold secrets: Not infrequently, their origin and maker, their age, or their various owners are hardly known, if at all. Often, one has to rely on assumptions and guesses. A toolbox from present-day Kazakhstan, however, is a bearer of secrets in more ways than one.
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Down the Danube in the Ulm Box
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.
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Edina's beach bag
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.
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Farewell after 500 years
A document in the Silesian Museum in Görlitz testifies to the acquisition of the village of Gleinitz by the brothers Nikolaus, Georg and Ladislaus von Niebelschütz in 1446. It was only by chance that the descendent of the Niebelschütz family, Harald von Niebelschütz, then 15 years old, saved the document in 1945 and donated it to the museum in 2017.
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From Sample Case to Museum Piece
Over 100 years, and it's still on the move – despite its rather plain appearance, this old brown case has had a rather impressive "career". It was once a sample case for woolen fabrics, a trusted companion on vacation trips, a means of transportion on the run and a piece of furniture in the bare dreariness of a home for refugees. Today, on loan from HAUS SCHLESIEN, it is an exhibit in the Museum of the Lubuskie Region in Grünberg (Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej w Zielonej Górze), and a silent witness to a hundred years of history.
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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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Moving Piety
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.
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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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Swimming to Freedom
On the night of May 22-23, 1979, 36-year-old Gernot Eamandi swims across the heavily guarded Danube from Romania to Yugoslavia. His destination: the Federal Republic of Germany. With him: a backpack from his army days.
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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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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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Wroclaw - Shanghai - Munich
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.