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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.
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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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Background article
Agata, Dorota, Iwona, Jolanta
"What luck that we had this kindergarten!" All four say. That was in the early 1970s. Agata and Jolanta now live in Germany, Dorota and Iwona have stayed in Masuria. Lehndorff Castle, the "Pałac", was a place they all felt happy. In those stately rooms they had a feeling of security and comfort, they played among the old oaks, went swimming in the lake. It was a microcosm away from the adult world with its worries and traumas.
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Background article
Antje Vollmer
She is known as a Green Party politician and for her longstanding role as Vice President of the German Bundestag. After retiring in 2005, she became a freelance author. Her first book project “Doppelleben” (Double Life) tells the story of Heinrich von Lehndorff, one of the conspirators of the events of 20 July 1944 , and his wife Gottliebe. It is a moving biography of two young aristocrats that tells of their daring and their love.
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Biography
Bettina Bouresh
"I’m a typical post-war child," says Bettina Bouresh. Born in 1950, she grew up burdened with German guilt and the traumas of her mother's family, who had lived in Allenstein until 1945. She herself felt homeless for a long time. Until one day she found her place: in Masuria. Here she found a home – and in Steinort Palace her life’s work. Today she is vice-chairwoman of the Lehndorff Society.
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Editorial
Educational offers on the war against Ukraine
Russia's war against Ukraine has clearly demonstrated society's great need for secure knowledge about the country of Ukraine. With the project "Sustainable and broadly effective educational offers of the Leibniz Network Eastern Europe on the war against Ukraine", the GWZO is helping to close the existing knowledge gap.
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Introduction
Emigration, Forced Migration, and the Iron Curtain
Eastern Europe has been a "migration hot spot" since the late 19th century: Initially as a core area of overseas emigration, then of ethnic forced migration after the end of World War I. Emigration during the Cold War was nearly impossible. Today, many countries in this region benefit from the European Union's Freedom of Movement policy.
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Biography
Eva Anna Therese Puschke
As far back as the 19th century, the Puschke family worked as teachers in Steinort and in the neighboring church village of Rosengarten. They played an important role in village life and had close ties to the noble Lehndorff family. The last teacher of the dynasty was Eva Puschke, a "lay teacher" in Rosengarten from 1940 to 1944. After the Germans were expelled, she lived in Hamburg. She left behind a suitcase full of family documents.
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Biography
Hannah Wadle
In 2009, Hannah Wadle settled in Sztynort to do research for her doctoral thesis – and stayed for a whole year. Gradually, her cautious explorations turned into familiarity and what began as a purely academic interest became a dedicated personal commitment to the town and its people. She learned to see the Lehndorff manor house from many perspectives. In 2017, she founded a cultural festival, and since then the palace has come to life every August.
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Important locations in Copernicus’ life
Nicolaus Copernicus rose to fame due to his interest in the stars. But where did he spend his life on Earth? Most of his sites of activity are found in present-day Poland, and many of them also relate to German history.
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Introduction
Jewish History in Eastern Europe: The 19th Century
In Jewish history, the 19th century stands for a time of comprehensive change in all areas of life. Jews, who had previously seen themselves primarily as a religious group, now became supporters of various political or national movements. This gave rise to a range of new, constantly contested Jewish affiliations.
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Biography
Marek Makowski and Piotr Wagner
Two passionate sailors, raised in Giżycko, not far from Sztynort. Marek Makowski (b.1984) and Piotr Wagner (b.1986) left at a young age, took advantage of the opportunities on offer in a united Europe and later returned to the world they grew up in. Marek, an entrepreneur and owner of a sailing school, and Piotr, a self-employed interpreter, tour guide and cultural professional, share a tangible vision for Sztynort.
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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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Interview (video)
Nicolaus Copernicus: The Copernican Revolution and today’s “planetary thinking”
Are current terms from sustainability research like “Anthropocene” and “planetary thinking” associated with a new kind of Copernican Revolution? In this interview, Giessen-based geographer Prof. Dr. Lea Schneider considers this complicated yet fascinating question. She also explains the objectives behind the European Union’s Earth Observation Program, which bears the name “Copernicus”.
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Object story
Papierówki – “Paper Apples”
A summer apple. The first to ripen. In Polish, it is called "papierówka", in German "Papierapfel" (paper apple). It once grew almost everywhere in Masuria and Warmia, including in the garden of Stefan Tymiec's grandmother, Gertrud. "It smelled and tasted delicious," he remembers. "And that yellow!" For his 60th birthday, he brought seedlings from a Polish nursery all the way to Wuppertal.
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Background article
Renate Marsch-Potocka on the Side of the Polish Opposition
Wolfgang Crasemann, a nephew of the famous journalist Renate Marsch-Potocka, has used interviews and personal documents - originally for his own family - to write down her life story and pay tribute to her contribution to German-Polish understanding. This previously unpublished text tells of her popularity in both countries in the years before 1989.
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Background article
Russian-German history as migration history
Russian Germans are a global minority. Their history is often characterized by migration within and outside the Russian Empire spanning several generations. In the last third of the 19th century, popular migration destinations included North and South America as well as new settlement areas in Siberia and Kazakhstan. It was here that all Russian Germans were then exiled during and after the Second World War. Since the latest period of resettlement in the 1980s and 1990s, most Russian Germans have settled in Germany.
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Editorial
Spaces - Borders - Projections
Since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022, questions around spaces and borders have increasingly appeared on the agenda of Eastern European studies. The contributions to the Copernico Portal’s newest area of focus demonstrate the important role played by space and border-related debates and the processes of appropriation and reinterpretation associated with them.
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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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