Symposium "Expulsion, Forced Migration, Loss of Culture 1945 in the Oder-Warthe Region"

5 November 2025, Kulturhaus Küstriner Vorland (DE)

The symposium „Expulsion, Forced Migration, Loss of Culture 1945 in the Oder-Warthe Region“ focussed on the complex German-Polish history in the border region, particularly after the Second World War. It opened up a space for German-Polish dialogue about the profound upheavals of 1945.

The region exemplifies forced migration, loss and new beginnings, the after-effects of which can still be felt today. Here, memory is understood as a relationship - open, multi-perspective and in dialogue. The aim is not a ready-made narrative, but a responsible narrative that combines science and personal experience, involves young people and builds bridges between research, education and the public.

The „Remembrance connects“ funding project creates a cross-border network that makes historical sites visible and preserves traces. In this way, remembrance becomes a process that opens up horizons, enables understanding and shapes the future.

Programme:

Opening:

Robert Nitz

Mayor of Seelow (Mark)

„Preserving history – shaping the future: Welcome to the symposium in the Oder-Warthe region“

The welcoming speech emphasises the importance of the symposium as part of the German-Polish project „Memory Connects“, honours the shared history and highlights the responsibility to actively address the issues of expulsion, forced migration and cultural loss. Mr Nitz underscores the relevance of remembrance culture for the present and future, calls for dialogue and cooperation, and urges us to learn from history in order to achieve peaceful coexistence in Europe.

Dirk Röder

City of Seelow (Mark)

Opening speech at the symposium „Expulsion, forced migration, cultural loss in 1945 in the Oder-Warthe region“

It is emphasised that remembrance is a living, communal process. It requires courage, respect and openness, and thrives on diversity and dialogue. The symposium „Remembrance Connects“ promotes the exchange of different experiences and perspectives in order to build bridges between generations and disciplines. The aim is not to create a finished narrative, but rather an open, responsible account of the past.

Panel I: Historical classification

Przemysław Słowiński

Jakub von Paradyż Academy

Population changes in the German-Polish border region after the Second World War. History. Politics. Semantics.

The Second World War was a defining event in human history. It led to numerous changes around the world. There is no doubt that responsibility for this armed conflict lay with the German state, and the crimes committed by the Third Reich, which led to the deaths of millions of people in Poland and other countries, to an enormous amount of physical and mental suffering, and to material destruction on an unprecedented scale, have had repercussions that are still felt today.

Reinhard Schmook

Oderland Museum Bad Freienwalde

Flight and expulsion in the Oder-Warthe region using the example of Königsberg/Nm. (Chojna)

The speech deals with the topic of flight and expulsion in the Oder-Warthe region using the example of the district town of Königsberg/Neumark. The rapid approach of the Red Army at the end of January/beginning of February 1945 led to chaotic conditions here, because the party authorities prevented an orderly evacuation of the town until the very end. What then happened in Königsberg from 4 April to 23 June 1945 is described by the local second pastor Fritz Bliedner. He was a member of the Confessing Church, an opposition movement of Protestant Christians against attempts to bring the doctrine and organisation of the German Protestant Church into line with National Socialism. The entries in his diary are both credible and illuminating, allowing us to form a picture of the terrible events between the invasion of the Red Army and the expulsion of the city's population. They reflect death and destruction, the suffering of the remaining inhabitants and, finally, the extensive destruction of the town with its medieval monuments.

Ryszard Skalba

Museum of the Kostrzyn Fortress

The pioneering years of Kostrzyn in Poland

In mid-1945, Küstrin's Old Town and New Town were among the most destroyed towns in the former German Reich. The expulsion of the German inhabitants paved the way for Polish settlers, and the town was given a new name - Kostrzyn. The first settlers were mainly railway workers and customs officials who were supposed to ensure the functioning of the basic transport and border structures. Over time, they were joined by labourers who worked on the reconstruction of the pulp and paper mill, which revived economic life.

Kostrzyn developed on the site of the former New Town, constructing new buildings and facilities from scratch. Offices, schools and workplaces were gradually established and the town increasingly gained its Polish character.

Tim Müller

Eigenbetrieb Kulturbetriebe Frankfurt (Oder) Viadrina Municipal Museum

The lost museum. The Frankfurt Oderland Museum in the former Lienauhaus

The fate of the Frankfurt City Museum's collection is traced using historical archive sources and eyewitness accounts. While important art objects were secured by Prof. Dr. Karpa in March 1945 and presumably taken out of the country, less valuable exhibits were left behind and were largely destroyed. The whereabouts of key pieces in the collection remain unclear; it is possible that they are stored in Potsdam or in Russian museums. This means that there is still hope that items believed to be lost can still be found. Intensive research is still required to clarify the whereabouts of the Frankfurt collection.

Agnieszka Lindenhayn-Fiedorowicz

Eigenbetrieb Kulturbetriebe Frankfurt (Oder) Viadrina Municipal Museum

A Cranach in the provinces - and his fate after 1945

The Neudamm Altarpiece from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger was one of the most important Renaissance retables in the Oder region. Donated in 1562 by Duchess Katharina von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel for the town church in Neudamm (Dębno), it was transferred to the village church in Nabern (Oborzany) after the church was rebuilt in 1852. Its post-war fate is exemplary for the loss of movable cultural assets in the Oder-Warthe region. The destruction caused by the war, the passage of the Red Army and the subsequent population movements led to the destruction, looting or devaluation of numerous church furnishings. The population exchange was accompanied by a change of denomination: the newly settled Catholic Poles were often indifferent or hostile to Protestant art. As a result, the Neudammer Altar was dismantled in the 1950s and banished to the attic, where it suffered severe damage and fell into oblivion. It was not until 1998 that it was rediscovered by a regional historian, badly damaged and incomplete. In 2002, it was taken away for restoration - not to a specialised workshop, but to the private workshop of the diocesan conservator in Szczecin. As the altar was not entered in the list of monuments after 1945, it is still not subject to state protection. The lecture takes this work as a case study to visualise the complex post-war fates of works of art in the region: between war destruction, confessional alienation, neglect and uncertain preservation.

Henriette Brendler

Frankfurt (Oder)

Saved, lost, returned: the medieval choir windows of St Mary's in Frankfurt (Oder)

The three late Gothic choir windows of St Mary's Church in Frankfurt (Oder) are not called a glass treasure without good reason. Nowhere else in Brandenburg is there a comparable collection of medieval stained glass; the Antichrist window is even considered unique. The article focusses on the fate of the Frankfurt Picture Bible during the Second World War, the handling of this subject in the GDR and the long journey from rediscovery to repatriation and restoration.

Marek Karolczak

Myślibórz

Material losses of cultural heritage using the example of the municipality of Myślibórz (Soldin)

The lecture describes the situation in Soldin/Myślibórz in February 1945 after the invasion of the Soviet army and presents preserved documents from the collections of the Museum of the Myślibórz Lake District in Myślibórz. They show the fate of the exhibits that were in the collections of the Regional Museum - Museum of Local History of the Soldin District, which existed from 1928 to 1945.

Christian Hirte

Museum Lebuser Land Müncheberg

The loss of inventory in the Museum Lebuser Land Müncheberg 1945 ff.

Lunch break
and tour of the Museum in the Kulturhaus Küstrin-Kietz under the professional supervision of the Association for the History of Küstrin e.V.

Panel II: Local perspectives - cultural loss - cultural appropriation?

Kamila Pałubicka

Kulturerben e.V.

Artistic-creative history mediation using the example of the Martyrium Museum Słońsk (Sonnenburg)

The town of Słońsk (formerly Sonnenburg) is a prime example of the difficult legacy of National Socialism. One of the first concentration camps was located here, where numerous political prisoners from all over Europe were imprisoned. In the final phase of the Second World War, more than 800 prisoners fell victim to a planned massacre. Dealing with this historical legacy and remembering the victims remains a central social task.

The Kulturerben e.V. association has been working with German-Polish youth groups for over ten years on innovative artistic approaches to this difficult chapter of European history. In various projects, performative, media and participatory approaches have been trialled that enable young people to actively engage with the culture of remembrance and develop their own forms of expression.

As part of the current workshops, we combine historical knowledge transfer with artistic and creative methods. After a guided tour of the central places of remembrance in Słońsk and a visit to the museum memorial, the young people work independently in German-Polish teams to create lay films. This technique allows them to combine images, symbols and texts and condense their reflections on the history of Sonnenburg into short film sequences. The work is complemented by spoken word texts and audio recordings, which are incorporated into a joint performance for the memorial service.

The result is a multi-layered, transnational approach to the culture of remembrance that combines historical facts with creative self-activity and enables young people to experience themselves as active shapers of a living European culture of remembrance.

Thomas Drewing

History and local history association Gusow-Platkow e.V.

New museums - the approach of the next generation

A conference volume will be produced, which will contain additional specialist contributions:

Friedrich Adolph Baron von Dellingshausen

Bailiwick of Brandenburg of the Order of St John

Sonnenburg – 500 years as the centre of the Balley Brandenburg of the Knightly Order of St. John of the Hospital
to Jerusalem

The Order of St John has shaped and developed the Oder-Warthe region like no other over the centuries. Against the backdrop of the events surrounding 1945, the text shows how the Order of St John responded to the consequences of these historical upheavals. The recovery of lost works of art, the preservation of archival materials, and investments and activities aimed at preserving historical buildings are symbolic of the efforts to recover lost cultural assets and create a shared space of remembrance. The initiatives for tourist and cultural revitalisation in cooperation with Polish partners are an expression of the will to overcome the ruptures of the past and promote cross-border dialogue on the shared heritage of the region. The Order of St John's commitment thus documents not only the preservation of objects, but also the attempt to preserve and jointly reshape identity and continuity in the face of loss and change.

Andrzej Kirmiel

Alf Kowalski Międzyrzecz Museum in Międzyrzecz

Międzyrzecz and the Międzyrzecz Land 1933-1947 in the face of great changes

The article presents the history of the inhabitants of Międzyrzecz and the Międzyrzecz region in the years 1933-1947 from the perspective of national changes. The author describes the process that led to the destruction of the multi-ethnic structure of the city that had developed over centuries. He reports on the history of the Jewish community of Międzyrzecz, which was the first to disappear from the ethnic landscape, and describes the further population shifts, this time after the end of the Second World War. At that time, the German inhabitants of the town and the neighbouring villages had to leave their homes. What remained were the locals, the Polish population, who spoke little or no Polish and with whom the new rulers did not really know what to do. In the end, they were treated like foreigners who expressed their desire to remain in Poland and were subjected to the same scrutiny. The final part of the national changes in the area between the Międzyrzecz and Wisła rivers was the influx of people from central and eastern Poland, as well as Ukrainians and Lemkos from south-east Poland, who had been expelled from their homeland as part of the „Wisła” campaign, which began in 1947.

Such mass resettlements lead to a situation in which ethnically foreign population groups arrive in areas where there are no longer any former inhabitants, but everything around them bears witness to their long-standing presence. The author describes what happened to the material culture of the communities that lived in Międzyrzecz and the neighbouring villages until 1945.

Andy Steinhauf

Association for the History of Küstrin e.V.

The Küstrin / Alt-Drewitz reception camp 1945

The article examines the establishment and brief existence of the Küstrin/Alt-Drewitz reception camp in autumn 1945. Following the order of the Soviet military administration to control the refugee convoys, the camp was set up as a central transit point for displaced persons. Despite massive destruction and a lack of infrastructure, up to 30,000 people had to be accommodated there at times. Reports describe chaotic conditions, inadequate medical care, assaults and logistical problems such as the „wagon crisis“. Between October and December 1945, over 52,000 people passed through the camp before it was closed down due to untenable conditions and conflicts with the local population. The reception camp is a prime example of the challenges of the post-war period and the precarious situation of displaced persons in the Soviet occupation zone.

Katarzyna Sztuba-Frąckowiak

Alf Kowalski Międzyrzecz Museum in Międzyrzecz

The coexistence of Germans and Russians on the estates of the Obrawalde State Hospital after the Red Army marched in in 1945, as recalled by Dorothea Neuss from Meseritz.

The article is about Germans who, together with Soviet soldiers, managed two institutional estates between Obrawalde and Meseritz. Their joint commander was the Ukrainian Sergeant Borodauku, who, during the expulsions, brought all his German estate workers safely across the Oder to their new home. It discusses their harmonious cooperation in the production of food for the Soviet units. It also addresses the relationship between the Germans from the institutional estates and the Polish and Soviet authorities in Międzyrzecz.

Dietmar Zimmermann

New Hardenberg

Neu Hardenberg becomes Marxwalde

The article sheds light on the eventful history of the place names of Neuhardenberg, from Quilitz to Neu Hardenberg to Marxwalde and back again. Particular attention is paid to the renaming to Marxwalde in 1949, the background to this, political influences and the role of the local council, as well as the significance of Karl Marx, which are traced on the basis of minutes and contemporary documents. The events show how political changes shape local identities.

We would like to thank our host at the Kulturhaus Küstrin-Kietz, our project partners and speakers, our interpreters, our photographer Mr Ahrendt and our film team from Parkosmedia. We would also like to thank our sponsor and the active participants of the symposium.