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Organizations
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World War II
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Object story
"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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Biography
A diary report of deportation and arrival
Joanna Konopińska recounts her deportation by the Germans during World War II and her arrival in Wroclaw after the end of the war in 1945 in her moving diary “Tamten wrocławski rok”.
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Object story
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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Object story
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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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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Webdocu
Neumann Family
The web documentary invites you to explore a family history between farewell and a new beginning.
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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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Background article
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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Summer 1941: Jews from the Baltic States flee for their lives
The long shadow of the past. Only a few Jews from Lithuania and Latvia managed to escape the Holocaust in the Baltics. Here are some of their accounts and the reasons for their difficult escape.
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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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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.