"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.
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...
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.
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...
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?
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.
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...
Introduction Jazz in the Eastern Bloc More than just music: During the Cold War, jazz suddenly found itself between all fronts – at the same time, it served as a propaganda weapon, a symbol of freedom and a musical bridge between East and West.
Digitalization project Jewish German Bukovina 1918+ "Jewish-German Bukovina 1918+" is a digitization project of the Digital Forum Central and Eastern Europe and offers free access to historical and contemporary documents from Bukovina or related to Bukovina. The time period ranges from the end of the First World War to the present.
Introduction Jews in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe The twentieth century brought monumental changes and unprecedented challenges to the East-European Jewry. Its story is told here in the voices of six Jewish women, whose lives were marked by its turbulent course.
Research project Karl Stumpp (1896-1982) Research into the culture and history of the Russian-Germans is highly relevant both from a historical perspective and today. Karl Stumpp still plays a key role in the formation of the Russian-German identity.
Kunst - Mensch - System ("Art - man - system") Adaptation or resistance: these were the two poles between which many artists in the Soviet Union moved. The exhibition "Kunst - Mensch - System" ("Art - man - system") uses the example of the sculptor Jakob Wedel to show the influence the totalitarian regime had on an artist's work and everyday...
