The Polish Wild West

Forced Migration and Cultural Appropriation in the Polish-German Borderlands, 1945-1948

Beata Halicka

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000060058
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The incorporation of German territories east of the Oder and Western Neisse rivers into Poland in 1945 was linked with the difficult process of an almost total exchange of population and involved the taking over of a region in which the Second World War had effected an enormous level of destruction. The contemporary term 'Polish Wild West' not only alluded to the reigning atmosphere of chaos and 'survival of the fittest' in the Polish–German borderland but was also associated with a new kind of freedom and the opportunity to start everything anew. The arrival in this region of Polish settlers from different parts of Poland led to Poles, Germans and Soviet soldiers temporarily coming into contact with one another. Living together in this war-damaged space was far from easy.

On the basis of ego-documents, the author recreates the beginnings of the shaping of this new society, one affected by a repressive political system, internal conflicts and human tragedy. In distancing oneself from the until-recently dominant narratives concerning expellees in Germany or pioneers of the 'Recovered Territories' in Poland, Beata Halicka tells the story of the disintegration of a previous cultural landscape and the establishment of one which was new, in a colourful and vivid manner and encompassing different points of view.

1 Introduction

During the first years following the Second World War, the lands which came to Poland east of the border on the Oder-Neisse Line would come to be known as the ‘Polish Wild West’. This concept alludes to, on the one hand, the atmosphere of chaos and ‘the law of the jungle’ reigning at the time while, on the other hand, suggesting an opportunity to create something new from the ground up. It is an expression of the frame of mind prevailing then, namely the tragedy of people being moved from place to place like objects but also the vitality of settlers who created new lives while still facing difficult conditions. Here, one is discussing a border region in the heart of Europe which, following the catastrophe of the Second World War, presented a wild, desolate and ruined space. The war had forced millions to migrate. Following its conclusion, an almost complete exchange of populations occurred in the borderland which affected not only Germans and Poles but members of other nationalities and ethnic groups.

If one asks those living today with what they associate the term the ‘Polish Wild West’, their rather vague answers allude to Poland’s western lands or the ‘Recovered Territories’.¹ Many have distanced themselves from the latter term by preceding it with the adjective ‘so-called’. One must, however, emphasise that during the period of 1945–48, the official name of the newly joined lands was, in fact, the ‘Recovered Territories’. At the same time, the term constituted one of the main propaganda slogans of the People’s Republic of Poland (Polish acronym, PRL), the historical interpretation associated with it being presented in Chapter 5. This is also why the term decidedly appears in quotation marks in this book. However, ‘Polish Wild West’ was a colloquial name which, due to its negative connotation, was viewed by the Communist authorities as of no use and thereby was to be avoided in public discourse. Despite this, it began to take on a life of its own in everyday language. In response to the inquiry ‘Polish Wild West’, internet search engines place a review of the film Prawo i Pięść (The Law and the Fist), directed by Jerzy Hoffman in 1964, in first place.² Along with this work, this characteristic result shows not only literary fiction but film had an influence on the contemporary imagination concerning the ‘Polish Wild West’. The above-mentioned work belongs to the classic canon of Polish cinematography and is known as ‘the best Polish western’. The main character, Andrzej Koenig, is a former concentration camp prisoner who attempts to find work following the war in western Poland. He seeks out the new authorities who commission him, along with a group of so-called ‘pioneers’, to secure a certain small town in Lower Silesia abandoned by the Germans until the arrival of new settlers from eastern and central Poland. When, however, he notices that his companions want merely to take advantage of the reigning confusion in order to loot, he attempts to counteract such actions by himself which puts him in a no-win situation in practical terms. In accordance with the conventions of a western, here one has to deal with villains and a hero, ‘the only righteous man’, but also several interesting female characters who attempt to survive in a world dominated by men. Beyond such stereotypes which are appropriate for the film genre, it depicts a very clear picture of the initial post-war period in western Poland. In the profiles of all the characters, their characteristic weariness and nostalgia for a normal happy life is emphasised. The film score by Krzysztof Komeda is also unforgettable, especially the first song entitled ‘Nim wstanie dzień’ (‘Before the Day Begins’) with lyrics by Agnieszka Osiecka. In the opening scene of the film, a train is seen pulling open wagons packed with people in ragged military uniforms, striped concentration camp uniforms or civilian clothing. They arrive at a crowded railway station where refugees from eastern Poland are unloading their worldly goods, part of which is on the platforms and part still on the trains. The wagons in which they have arrived are decorated with propaganda slogans stating, ‘We are returning to the Lands of the Piast Dynasty.’

This type of picture may be found in many memoirs and memories of the settlers of the ‘Polish Wild West’. They treat pre-war Poland – a multicultural nation whose inhabitants included Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Byelorussians, Lithuanians among others, along with many mixed families, and who met each other following the war in the newly joined territories. There they came to live in a state based on a uniform ethnicity and an unambiguous identification with Polishness. Their memoirs tell us of the long routes of forced migration, the countless transfer points through which their authors had to pass during the war and following its conclusion in order to finally find a place to settle down. The descriptions of their arrival and first days in a new place and new makeshift society are very vivid and marked with emotion. Stanisław Jędrzejowski from Szczecinek (formerly Neustettin) encapsulated his first impressions thus:

The destruction which the war had caused in these lands was enormous. Rubble and the debris of walls while those which still stood were blackened by smoke. The streets and cobblestones were rooted up by shells or had holes torn in them while the paths were covered in rubble […] life in the broadest sense had died. It was only after a few weeks that it began to appear again. The permanent residents of the town who had stayed in this place began to show themselves in the town after several days. The first signs of life following the arrival of the Soviet Army further west were those flowing in from central Poland. The lion’s share of these people were so-called looters who shied away from nothing, their motto being take what you can, rob and carry it away […] This all occurred during the period when there were as yet no administrative or civil authorities. Life was wild and was full of lawlessness. Abuse occurred without restraint, one could buy anything for moonshine and vodka. Soviet soldiers sold the horses and cattle which they were driving eastwards […] During this time, the town looked strange as it was divided into two parts. A Soviet sector occupied by the Soviet Army and a Polish area were settlers had come to live […] During this time each street presented an interesting appearance. People moved around quietly and quickly […] and not a child could be found on the streets.³

Waves of settlers flooded into these lands for a long time to come, although many felt disappointment at the difficult living conditions which they found there, time and again moving further on in their quest for better homes, places of work and neighbours. An atmosphere of impermanence dominated, therefore. With time, the numbers rose of those who had found their place or of those, such as settlers from Poland’s Soviet-annexed eastern borderlands, who had no possibility of returning and felt forced to settle in the west. It was these people who were the first to notice the enormous potential hidden away in their new small homeland. In the memoirs of Aleks Lapander, who had been a pre-war secondary school teacher and later an inmate of Stutthof concentration camp,⁴ the pioneering spirit and enthusiasm come across very clearly:

Personally, I am bursting with pride as I ‘fought’ for this legacy for years and at a certain moment I was forced to think, worryingly ‘If only we don’t waste it.’ Such managerial concern resulted from a critical attitude towards our mentality. We will fight over religion, ideology, philosophy but not over economics.⁵

How did Poles treat the sleeping potential of these newly joined lands? What did they manage to save and what was irreversibly lost? What was an issue of human mentality and what was related to the exceptional conditions reigning at the time, as well as the political authorities? What was an aim of the Communist government and what did ordinary citizens aim to achieve? What connected or divided both groups? These and other questions constitute the starting point of this work, namely an attempt at reconstructing the processes related to forced migration and the cultural appropriation of space which occurred during the period 1945–48 in the lands along the river Oder.⁶ The settlement of the incorporated lands, which had undergone significant destruction during the war, presented an enormous challenge. Their rebuilding and management demanded much effort, involvement and, frequently, sacrifice from this fledgling society. In establishing a political system, one which was centralised and thus Warsaw-centred, the Communist authorities rarely noticed the most urgent needs related to the development of the region and hindered more than helped. The result of this was that it was only the second or third generation of new Polish inhabitants who managed to put down roots or acknowledged the Oder basin as their homeland:

In the sixty years after the end of the Second World War, we have become not only the depositaries of the German heritage of these lands but are currently the successors of this tradition. This is clearly shown by the fact that we are at home here, that these lands have become part of the Polish landscape and ‘the closest fact of existentialism’ which nothing else can replace.⁷

Part of the processes described here occurred not only in the Oder basin covering most of the lands which were incorporated into western Poland (with the exception of the upper course of the river and part of the basin of its tributary, the Warta), but also in the territory of former East Prussia which lay in northern Poland, therefore present-day Warmia and Masuria. The Oder region will thus be treated, on the one hand, as a space in the geographical sense and, on the other, as a subject of research, above all, in a social sense as a linguistic and cultural space which had been shaped over several centuries and whose multi-generational structure began to disintegrate along with the course of events during the Second World War. As a result of population exchanges which took place after its conclusion, the lands along the Oder required a new definition. A crucial question which must be asked in this context is where in this space may one observe elements of continuity? To what degree has this borderland exerted an influence on its population and what has been imprinted by people?

Regarding the area being examined in this book, the Oder region is understood as a region covering the German lands which were incorporated into western Poland in 1945. The main interest lies in the lands along the central and lower courses of the Oder, which were selected due to the fact that, as a landscape, they represent all the characteristics of the ‘Polish Wild West’. Less attention will be paid to the part of Oder basin which belongs to the upper course of the river in the Czech-Polish borderland and in Upper Silesia, as well as to the part of the basin near its tributary, the Warta in Wielkopolska region. Those regions are not examined in this book, because their own specifics differ in many aspects from those typical for the ‘Polish Wild West’.

In the lands along the central and lower courses of the Oder an almost entire exchange of populations was implemented. Up to 1945, the regions of Lower Silesia, east Brandenburg and Pomerania were inhabited mainly by Germans, with Polish citizens settling later, initially still displaying ethnic diversity but, with time, creating a homogenous society regarding nationality. It is an area of diverse landscape, divided into typically rural, small town and industrial regions, as well as two large urban centres in the form of Wrocław (Breslau) and Szczecin (Stettin). In the case of these two metropolises – one in Lower Silesia, the other in Pomerania – their settlement, their constitution by the Polish Communist authorities and their relationship with various ethnic groups have been examined to a significant degree.⁸ However, research on the area lying between them is lacking, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Oder region and the ‘Wild West’
• 3 The most difficult language in the world: a literary introduction to the subject
• 4 The deconstruction of the Oder region
• 5 Dealing with obstacles
• 6 Poland on the move: the migration of populations
• 7 Arrival in the Oder region
• 8 A successful takeover? A typology of the new settlers
• 9 The appropriation of one’s space
• 10 A new society: A cultural and ethnic mix
• 11 The myth of the ‘Polish Wild West’ a decade later
• Outline of primary and secondary sources
• Index
• Index of places