1945: War and Peace

2 ideas

1. Eastern Repatriates Sharing Houses with Expellees

   In 1945 Poles deported from the lost eastern borderlands around Lwów and Wilno were sent by freight train to former German towns in Silesia and Pomerania. There they often moved into houses whose German owners had not yet been expelled, and both families shared kitchens and rooms for weeks or months. The displaced were thus housed by the displaced, each family treating the same property as a home it had lost or was about to lose.

2. Monthly Reports on Poles, Germans, Jews

   The book is arranged by month, each opened with press notices, and within that frame sets separate reports on Poles, Germans and Jews side by side. Read together, these reports show one event, such as a shifted border, meaning liberation to some and expulsion to others. The order is not strictly chronological: the book closes with the January sinking of the Gustloff.

Save and mark ideas in the app