Transcript SYJONIZM - CEELBAS

Migrants’ Memoirs Old & New:
Polish Migrants in Berlin
(late 19th century until today)
Dorota Praszałowicz
Jagiellonian University
Kraków, Poland
[email protected]
Polish Population
in Berlin
Beginning of the mass immigration:
mid-19th century
Estimated size of the group
Beginning of the 20th Century
– approximately 100 000
Interwar Time (1918 – 1939)
- approximately 30 000
Beginning of the 21st Century
– approximately 100 000
Berlin
City Population 1860-2000
Year
Population
1860
494 994
1880
1 123 794
1910
2 071 000
1930
4 332 834
1950
3 336 026
2000
3 382 169
Sources: Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin 1905, Berlin 1907, p. 14-15;
Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin 1912-1914, Berlin 1916, p. 4-5
http://www.statistik-berlin.de/statistiken/Bevoelkerung/b-ab50.htm
Basic Literature (1)
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Hartmann Georg, 1990, Polen in Berlin, [in:] Von Zuwanderern
zu Einheimischen. Hugenotten, Juden, Böhmen, Polen in Berlin,
(eds.) Steffi Jersch-Wenzel, Barbara John, Berlin, p. 593-771.
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Kozłowski Jerzy 1987, Rozwój organizacji społeczno-narodowych
wychodźstwa polskiego w Niemczech w latach 1870-1914, Wrocław.
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Miera Frauke, 2007, Polski Berlin – Migration aus Polen nach Berlin.
Integrations- und Transnationalisierungsprozesse
1945 bis Ende der 1990 Jahre, Münster.
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Murzynowska Krystyna 1981, Polacy w Berlinie w latach 1870-1914.
Niemiecki Kościół katolicki wobec wychodźstwa polskiego,
[in:] Wychodźstwo a kraj. Studia historyczne, (eds.) Krzysztof Groniowski,
Witold Stankiewicz, Warszawa, p. 74-100.
Basic Literature (2)
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Polacy w Berlinie. Przyczynek do historii wychodźstwa polskiego w Berlinie
i po prawym brzegu Laby, 1937 (ed.) Antoni Gołąbek, J. Kaźmierczak,
Innowrocław.
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Poniatowska Anna 1986, Polacy w Berlinie 1918-1945, Poznań.
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Rakowski Kazimierz, 1901, Kolonia polska w Berlinie, Biblioteka Warszawska ,
p. 234-272;
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Steinert Oliver, 2003, Berlin-Polnischer Bahnhof. Die Berliner Polen. Eine
Untersuchung zum Verhältnis von nationaler Selbstbehauptung und sozialem
Integrationsbedürfnis einer fremdsprachigen Minderheit in der Hauptstadt des
Deutschen Kaiserreichs 1871-1918, Hamburg.
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Trzeciakowski Lech, 2003, Posłowie polscy w Berlinie 1848-1928, Warszawa.
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Ziętkiewicz 1994, Polacy w Berlinie. Historia i dzień dzisiejszy, Berlin.
Memoirs
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Abramowicz Bronisław, 1923, Ze wspomnień rodowitego berlińczyka, Zielona
Góra 1979.
Berkan Władysław, 1923, Życiorys własny, Poznań.
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Czebatul Marta, 1999, Opowieść Marty z Szułcików,
Nowy Tomyśl.
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Danielewicz-Kerski Dorota & Maciej Górny (ed.), 2008,
Berlin. Polnische Perspektiven. 19.-21. Jahrhundert, Berlin.
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Rose Karol 1932, Wspomnienia berlińskie, Warszawa.
Old and New Migrations
Old and New Discourse
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Old migrations: mid-19th century until late 1930’s
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New migrations: starting from the World War II
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Old discourse: focusing on (Polish) national identity
and immigrant community building
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New discourse: focusing on globalization, transnationalism,
and multiple (intersecting) identities
The structure of discourse
affects the structure of recall
“The extent to which autobiographical memories
are stored as narratives is an open question (…),
but whether told to oneself or to another,
autobiographical memories are usually told.
Thus the structure of discourse affects the structure of recall,
which in turn affects the structure of later recall.“
David C. Rubin, Remembering Our Past: Studies in Autobiographical Memory,
Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1995
[Introduction, p. 1-15], p. 2.
The Old Discourse
(late 19th century until 1939)
1. Discourse typical for the time of rising nationalism
(all over Europe)
Key Notions: nation, language, cultural identity
2. Polish specific situation – national community building
without the independent state (1795-1918)
Key Notions: struggle for survival, contesting the assimilation
(assimilation as a national treason)
Victimization and Martyrology
"The partitions of Poland in the eighteenth century
[1772, 1793, 1795]
gave the country an <essential> identity
as <the Christ among nations>,
crucified and recrucified by foreign opression."
[Peter Novick, The Holocaust aand Collective Memory.
The American Experience, London 2001, p. 4.]
Polish Tradition
and Traditional Polish Discourse
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Polish Diaspora as the “Forth Partition”,
an inherent part of the nation (imagined community),
an element of Polish collective memory
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Polish historiography and its role in constructing Polish national
identity. Focus on both the heroic past, and the misfortunes,
and not on the process of the (slow) economic development.
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Polish migration outflow perceived in terms of national tragedy,
and not as a part on international labour flow at the time of
modernization
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Polish migrants expected to resist assimilation.
Anti-assimilation discourse, both in academia and in public.
Inter-war Time 1918-1939
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A challenge of reunification of three partition zones
after about 150 years of the foreign opression
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A sense of insecurity of the state at the time of facism in Europe
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National minorites made 35% of the population
in the interwar Poland
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„The fires of Polish nationalism were fuelled by the fact
that the ethnic minorities were so large"
Migrants memoirs - key topics
(late 19th century until 1939)
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Polishness (cultural continuity):
language maintenance, traditional Polish Catholicism
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Polish immigrant community building in Berlin
(Vereinsvesen: associations, clubs, ethnic press,
ethnic services)
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Keeping in touch with significant others who stayed at home
Memoirs – Marta Czebatul
Marta Czebatul, Opowieść Marty z Szułcików,
Nowy Tomyśl 1999.
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Born 1907 in a Polish immigrant working class family
in Zehdnick, Brandeburg
The family moved to Berlin just before the World War I
Marta was brought up partially in Berlin, partially in Poznania
(home region of her parents)
1928 she left Berlin for good, and settled in Polish northeastern frontier (1932)
At the level of declaration, the memoir is a chronicle
of struggle for Polishness
At the level of described facts, it is a document
testifying to complexity of the inter-ethnic relations
Sense of alienation
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Migration experience: Berlin, Poznania, and Lithuania
Home – Poznania
She did not manage to „plug in” to the city (Berlin)
She never felt there at home …
She emphasized her unpleasant experiences in Berlin
She never elaborated on good relations with Germans
in her every day life in Berlin
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She was eager to write about the Polish community life,
but she recalled it in an unreliable way.
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The key elements of her Polish-centered narrative are:
the language, faith, and „anti-otherness”
Another Memoir - Władysław Berkan
(businessman & Polish activist)
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Born 1859 in Pommern
1880 moved to Berlin, worked as a tailor
Established his own workshop (men suits’ manufacture)
Became successful & affluent businessman
1918 returned to Poland
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In the memoirs he focused on:
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– His own role in the Polish immigrant community building
– Describtion of the Polish community life in Berlin
– Giving himself as an example to the Polish immigrants
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He mentioned his family life only marginally,
he did not elaborate on his every-day life
Patriotic discourse vis a vis facts
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Berkan’s memoirs was meant to be a kind of tribute to Polish
activists in Berlin and their struggle for cultural continuity
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But it could have been a documentary of transnational life
strategies of Poles who moved
between Berlin and their home land
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Also, it could have been a chronicle of development
of metropolis and its plural population
World War II
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Despite the the discourse of the traditional Polish
historiography, Poles and Germans
shared the war fate;
this topic has never been studied so far
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Instead scholars focused on forced labor,
deportations, and on struggle for Berlin
at the end of the War.
Nowadays – New Discourse
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Berlin as a plural city (self-perception)
Transnationalism
Globalization
Alternative culture
New forms of Polish community life:
Club Polnischer Versager
(Polish Loosers’ Club)
Berlin Love Parade
New Ways of Identification
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I am a Jew from Poland
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I am European
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I am German & Jewish & Silesian
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I am a Pole in Berlin
[a woman who immigrated from Petersburg,
her mother is Greek,
and her father who is Russian, has a distant Polish background]
Migrant writers in Berlin nowadays (1)
Basil Kerski, Homer auf dem Potsdamer Platz. Ein Berliner Essay (2003), [in:] Berlin. Polnische Perspektiven
19. – 21. Jahrhundert, (eds.) Dorota Danielewicz Kerski, Maciej Górny, Berlin 2008, pp. 417-425.
„Die unterschiedlichen, nebeneinander existierenden, ethnischen
und gesellschaftlichen Elemente halfen mir einen polnisch-irakischen
Einwanderer aus Danzig, mitten im Leben dieser Metropole meinen
Platz zu finden. Ich habe mich in kein Ghetto einschlißen müssen.
Ganz im Gegenteil: Von den Deutschen, die in der Spreemetropole
polnische, französische oder flämische Namen tragen, werde ich
als ein typischer Berliner angesehen – ein slavischer Einwanderer
und Kind eines orientalischen Gastarbeiters. Erst in dieser Stadt
habe ich gelernt, dass ich mich nicht zwischen meinen polnischen
und irakischen Wurzeln entschieden muss, auch zwing mich
niemand, einen gebürtigen Deutschen vorzutäuschen. Eine solche
Entscheidung würde nur das Gefühl des Fremdseins vertiefen und
Minderwertigkeitskomplexe hervorrufen. Meine komplizierte Identität
schreibt sich in die Stadtgeschichte ein, ist eines der wenigen Elemente
der Kontinuität, die Berlin geblieben sind.“ p. 421
Migrant writers in Berlin nowadays (2)
Krzysztof Niewrzęda, Czas przeprowadzki, Szczecin 2005
„In such a situation it is difficult to identify as a migrant. (…)
[because while in Berlin, one has a feeling
that he still lives in Poland] .
It is more and more difficult to point
to differences
between <here> [Berlin]
and <there> [Poland]. (…) p. 147
While studying memoirs
we must introduce contextualizing strategies.
Traumatic memory can be make central to the life story
but on the other hand
we can be confronted with collective amnesia
Traditional historiography was usually ethnocentric.
It played a substantial role in shaping national identity
(especially national pride),
and in forging national collective memory.
In case of suppressed community, the national identity,
based on collective memory,
served as a weapon against enemies.