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External Image
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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Online finding aid
Press clippings online
The online database "Press clippings online" enables the research of press clippings from the personal dossiers of the press clippings archive at the Herder Institute for East Central European History. The service is continually updated as further material is indexed and made available online. For...
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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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Introduction
Steinort/Sztynort Migration Stories
Steinort Palace in northern Masuria was the seat of the noble Lehndorff family until 1945. The last Count, Heinrich von Lehndorff, was one of the conspirators of July 20, 1944. These stories tell of the fate of the East Prussian noble family and follow the lives of people who lived in the village, which is called Sztynort today. Others tell of German and Polish enthusiasts who are working to revive the run-down manor house. 17 biographical texts explore themes of expulsion and new beginnings, tragedy and awakening in this multi-ethnic region.
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Background article
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 Changing Landscape of Place Names
The Republic of Poland has a turbulent history – as do its many place names. Hardly any town or village has only one, which makes the matter very complicated, especially for historical research.
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Background article
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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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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Introduction
The National Opera in Central and Eastern Europe
Today it is the passion of a select few music lovers – but in the 19th century, opera was a major social event, an expression of national consciousness, or even the musical declaration of national independence. But how did this happen? What role does the national opera play in Eastern Europe? And what makes an opera a national opera?
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Object story
The Odyssey of a Rococo dresser
For more than 150 years, the Rococo dresser stood on the upper floor of the Steinort castle, in the so-called "Simson room". It bears witness to the lifestyle of an East Prussian noble family. Behind it lies an adventurous journey that began after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, when Heinrich Graf von Lehndorff, the last lord of the castle, was arrested and executed.
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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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Projekttypen
Research project | Publication project
Under surveillance
This project focuses on the observation of displaced persons' organizations and functionaries by the socialist intelligence services.
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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.
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Podcast
Wenzel
Hans-Eckardt Wenzel, or "Wenzel" as he calls himself, is a poet and singer with Bohemian roots, born in Wittenberg in 1955. In GDR times, he studied farewell letters of young communists who lost their lives in the resistance against Hitler. Through his friendship with Antje Vollmer, he became acquainted with the story of Heinrich and Gottliebe von Lehndorff in 2008 and dedicated a song to the young aristocratic couple entitled: “The Final Letters."
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Biography
Wolfram Jäger
One day, Wolfram Jäger heard on the radio about the catastrophic condition of Lehndorff Palace. The well-known specialist in the restoration of historic buildings had recently completed a major project for UNESCO in Barcelona and immediately made his way to Masuria. In the spring of 2011, he made a momentous decision – a stroke of luck for the castle, a Herculean task for him.
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Wroclaw in aerial photographs from the interwar years
The exhibition takes a look at the Wroclaw of the interwar period – a major city, pulsating with life and highly dynamic in terms of its urban development.