Special exhibition "Skoro damoi!" Hope and despair Starting in January 1945, large numbers of Transylvanian Saxons were deported to the Soviet Union to do forced labor. The exhibition showcases personal objects, photographs and documents that shed light on this central chapter of the recent history of Transylvanian Saxons.
Webdocu "We, too, are stepping down from our role" Web documentary about the German Drama Theater in Temirtau and the Germans in the Soviet Union between staying and leaving.
Biographical Portrait A Failed Mission In 1946, Ben Zion Goldberg traveled through the Soviet Union as a journalist. But his journey was part of a personal mission as well: he was determined to keep the newly established dialogue with Jewish organizations in the USSR alive – hoping that, in doing so, he could contribute to a more peaceful world.
Background Article A Latvian Valiant In 2018, Juris Bļodnieks donated a 1971 Plymouth Valiant to the Latvians Abroad Museum – it was spray-painted, inoperable and had been parked under a tarpaulin for two decades. The car tells the story of Latvian exile culture in North America, of protest, patriotism and the creative expressiveness of the second generation abroad.
Background Article A lost treasure trove of knowledge The Ukrainian Scientific Institute (Ukrainische Wissenschaftliche Institut or UWI) was the central research centre for the Ukrainian émigré community in Germany between 1926 and 1945. At its height, Its library was the largest collection of specialist literature on Ukraine anywhere, but its contents was scattered during the war: in retrospect it serves as an example of how the Nazi regime controlled academic institutions in order to promote its own political interests.
Object Story 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.
Research network Ambivalences of Sovietness The network explores the supposed paradox of the group collective experience of repression and everyday individual Soviet 'normalization' through the example of Russian Germans and Soviet Jews. The focus is particularly on the peripheries of the late Soviet Union. Secondly, the effects of these...
Background Article Art in the space between Between everyday life in the camp and artistic awakening: after fleeing their homeland in 1944, Estonian artists sought ways to preserve their culture in Germany – and created art that balanced tradition, trauma and tentative attempts at a new modernism.
Research project Bank House Georg Scheel & Co. Do national issues and ethnicity play a role in finance, or does the financial world operate transnationally? This research project examines this question on the basis of the bank Georg Scheel & Co.
Background Article Between Memory and Belonging Even today, Chicago is considered the most important hub of the Lithuanian diaspora. This has much to do with the migrations that took place as a result of the Second World War. What connects members of the DP Community with their family histories today? And how does their identity shape their everyday lives?
Research network Conflict regions in Eastern Europe In addition to the current Ukraine-Russia crisis, the project network analyzes the history and present of other conflict regions in Eastern Europe. Which actors and media construct conflicts? How do the conflicts manifest themselves? What dynamics characterize the course of conflicts and how should...
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...
Background Article Decolonization in the Russian Federation In spring 2023 the Өmә exhibition took place in Kreuzberg, Berlin and received a great deal of media attention. The exhibition not only exposed the reproducibility of Russian imperialism, describing the war in Ukraine as colonial, but also made political demands regarding territorial independence.
Digitalization project | Research project Deutsche und polnische Akteure der Neuen Ökonomischen Politik (NĖP) ("German and Polish Actors of the New Economic Policy [NĖP]") The Martin Opitz Library and the Viadrina University are currently cooperating in a project on document digitization, which is to be supplemented by an electronic thematic module on nationality policy and territorialization processes in Soviet Ukraine. Both are topics that, since the Crimean Crisis...
Infrastructure project Digital Atlas of Political Spatial Images of Eastern Central Europe in the 20th Century For the past two decades, the “renaissance of space“ has been an important development for research in the historic and cultural sciences as well as in critical geography and cartography. “Space”, a term that acquired a negative connotation because of its use in national-socialist geopolicy,...
Background Article Displaced Persons – Between Liberation and a New Beginning Over eleven million people were considered displaced persons in 1945. Those who did not return immediately lived mainly in DP camps in the western occupation zones of Germany and Austria. How did they experience this time of uncertainty?
Travelling exhibition Forgotten civilization In 2012 Artjom Uffelmann undertook a photographic expedition to the historic settlement area of the Volga Germans. He recorded their architectural legacy on exposed glass plates, which are now on display in an exhibition of the Cultural Office for Russian Germans.
Background Article Gender and “the East” Gender and sexuality are critically important factors in postwar West German anticommunist and antislavic attitudes. Fantasies and fears about a reversed gendered order in ‘the East‘ significantly contributed to anti-‘Eastern‘ resentments in Adenauer-era Germany.
Travelling exhibition Heavy Fabric Eye-catching colors on a gold background next to jet-black bridal wear: Danube Swabian Costumers give surprising insights into the former lives of women and girls. Their world was narrow, since lives – particularly female ones - were regulated by fixed village and church rules. But it was also...
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...
