Ends of War Polen: Kultur – Geschichte – Gesellschaft Poland: Culture – History – Society Herausgegeben von / Edited by Yvonne Kleinmann Band 5 / Volume 5 Ends of War Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Past and New Polish Regions after 1944 Edited by Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel, Yvonne Kleinmann, Miloš Řezn´ık and Dorothea Warneck WALLSTEIN VERLAG Published with the support of the German Historical Institute (DHI) Warsaw and the Foundation »Remembrance, Responsibility and Future« (EVZ). Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. © Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2019 www.wallstein-verlag.de Vom Verlag gesetzt aus der Garamond und der Frutiger Umschlaggestaltung: Susanne Gerhards, Düsseldorf © SG-Image unter Verwendung der Fotografie »Kobiety przy obalonym pom- niku cesarza Wilhelma I / Women at the toppled monument of Kaiser Wilhelm I«, Gdańsk, June 1945, Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe 86-2-10 Lithografie: SchwabScantechnik, Göttingen ISBN (Print) 978-3-8353-3307-9 ISBN (E-Book, pdf) 978-3-8353-4269-9 Contents Acknowledgements . 9 Note on Transliteration and Geographical Names . 10 Paulina Guli´nska-Jurgiel, Yvonne Kleinmann, and Dorothea Warneck Introduction: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Past and New Polish Regions after 1944 . 11 1. Material and Mental Breakdown – Efforts of (Re)construction Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska, Dorothea Warneck Material and Mental Breakdown – Efforts of (Re)construction: Introduction . 29 Anna Wylegała The Post-War Landscape: An Anatomy of the Breakdown of the Social World in Poland during World War II . 41 Małgorzata Krupecka The (Un)Ending War: New Challenges for the Congregation of the Grey Ursulines in Poland in 1945 . 67 Iryna Horban Reconstructing the Past: Museums in Lviv after 1944 . 97 Imke Hansen Materiality and the Construction of Memory: The Case of Auschwitz-Birkenau . 119 Anna Zieli´nska Languages of the the Territories Incorporated into Poland in 1945: Arguments against the Thesis of Linguistic Integration . 143 Contents Daniel Weiss The Newborn Polish Nowomowa after 1944 and Its Relation to the Soviet Original . 157 2. The War is Dead, Long Live the War! – Emotions and Uncontrollable Actions Joanna Hytrek-Hryciuk The War is Dead, Long Live the War! – Emotions and Uncontrollable Actions: Introduction . 189 Joanna Sulikowska-Fajfer The Voice(s) of Polish Poets during the Immediate Postwar Years: Capturing the ›Spirit of the Times‹ . 201 Monika Talarczyk Don’t Let Auschwitz Happen Again! The Reception of Wanda Jakubowska’s Film The Last Stage (Ostatni etap) in the Late 1940s . 235 Katarzyna Woniak »I am Waiting for the End of this War, Day after Day, Week after Week.« Hopes of Polish Forced Labourers in Germany, 1939-1945 . 253 Marcin Zaremba Fearing the War after the War: Poland from 1945 through the 1960s . 275 3. Past Injustice – Imaginations and Concepts of Law and Justice Rachel Kerr Past Injustice – Imaginations and Concepts of Law and Justice: Introduction . 297 Jacek Chrobaczy´nski How Communist Authority was Legitimised in Poland 1944: The Polish Committee of National Liberation versus the Warsaw Uprising . 303 6 Contents Ewa Malinowska Text in Context: The Discourse on the Legal and State System in Poland after the End of World War II . 327 Paulina Guli´nska-Jurgiel How to Punish National-Socialist Crimes in Poland? Genocide According to the Definition of Jerzy Sawicki . 349 List of Contributors . 371 7 Acknowledgements The origin of this volume was the international conference Ends of War: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Past and New Polish Regions after 1944, organized by the Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies, Halle and the German Historical Institute (DHI), Warsaw. At this conference, which took place in Warsaw in November 2015, specialists from the fields of history, philology, Judaic studies, muse- ology, and film studies examined the end of the Second World War in its processual qualities and in its significant regional variations. This book comprises a selection of the extensively reworked papers as well as two additional articles. The conference and this volume were generously funded by the Foundation »Remembrance, Responsibility and Future« (EVZ); the German Historical Institute, Warsaw; and the Department of History at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. This publication does not ex- press the opinions of the EVZ or of the other funding institutions; the ideas presented are solely those of the authors. We would like to express our gratitude to the very supportive staff of the German Historical Institute; to the authors, who demonstrated admirable patience during the editing process; to the translators, Tul’si Bhambry and Mariola Guzy (from Polish), and Olena Feshovets (from Ukrainian); to the copy editor, Joseph E.B. Hogan, who refined the many texts by non-native speakers; and to Kay Schmücking, who pro- vided us with his expertise in the final text editing. Special thanks go to the anonymous peer reviewers who improved the quality of the arti- cles by their insightful critiques. We would also like to cordially thank Janet Boatin at Wallstein publishing house for her steady encourage- ment and her professional procedures and organization. The editors 9 Note on Transliteration and Geographical Names The transliteration of Russian and Ukrainian follows the Library of Congress system, the exception being that, for the sake of readability, »ь« (soft sign) is represented by an apostrophe (’) only in the footnotes and bibliographies, but not in the main text. We have not held to a consistent use of place names in the case of cities, towns, and villages, as many of them were situated in varying political and linguistic contexts. Each author has decided on the suit- able name(s) in the individual historical setting, e.g. Lemberg, Lwów, Lvov, or Lviv. 10 Paulina Guli ´nska-Jurgiel, Yvonne Kleinmann, and Dorothea Warneck Introduction: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Past and New Polish Regions after 1944 In June 1945, the photographer Ryszard Witkowski took a photo- graph later entitled »Women at the toppled monument of Kaiser Wil- helm I« (Kobiety przy obalonym pomniku cesarza Wilhelma I). It is part of a larger series of pictures Witkowski took in Danzig, Gdynia, and Sopot that same year, depicting architectural sites, everyday situ- ations, monuments, and military parades.1 Ryszard Witkowski: Women at the toppled monument of Kaiser Wilhelm I (NAC: Archiwum fotograficzne Ryszarda Witkowskiego, sygn. 86-2-10). In the foreground are two young women: Aniela Witkowska, the sis- ter of the photographer, and behind her an unidentified woman, who is laughing while perched on top of the fallen equestrian statue of Wil- helm I. In the background is a wall of concrete and beyond that the 1 The full collection is available at the Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (NAC): https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl/zespol/86/ 11 Paulina Gulinska-Jurgiel, ´ Yvonnne Kleinmann, and Dorothea Warneck ruins of houses at the Coal Market (Kohlenmarkt/Targ Węglowy) in Danzig. The two women are focusing on a small container, in which something is burning, on the head of the horseman. The image is be- wildering, evoking a tension from the juxtaposition of normal activ- ity and extreme circumstances. Here are young, cheerful people by a fire on a cool early summer evening, their shoulders draped with rain capes. Yet the setting indicates that this activity takes place during a time impregnated by destruction, and fundamental political, social, and cultural upheaval. The history of the monument renders the presence of the three young people (the documenting photographer included) into some- thing symbolic. The statue, designed by Eugen Brömel, a German pro- fessor of art in Königsberg, had been erected in Danzig at the High Gate (Hohes Tor, later Brama Wysoka, today ul. Wały Jagiellońskie) in 1903. The German inhabitants of the city enthusiastically integrated the statue of the former Kaiser into their social and political life. It be- came a popular meeting point and a central place for national mani- festations, including protest actions against the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and the conspiracy against Adolf Hitler in June 1944.2 During the Soviet conquest of Danzig, soldiers of the Red Army pulled down the monument of Wilhelm I with a rope attached to a tank, thereby sym- bolically putting an end to German rule. When Witkowski took this photo, the statue was lying in a provisional fire protection water tank at the Coal Market. Sometime later it vanished, and eventually so did its severely damaged pedestal.3 The gathering of the young Poles at, and on top of, the collapsed monument can be seen metaphorically as a second victory over NS Germany, a victory not accomplished by force of arms, but by play. They engage in a mockery by physically occupying the former Ger- man ruler, and at the same time demonstrate vitality in front of ruins. The very act of taking a picture of young Polish women on a wrecked German monument as such can be seen to mark the beginning of a new, not yet clearly defined Polish chapter in the city’s history. In any case the photo had great potential for being used for propaganda pur- poses in the new political system. Like a multi-focused lens, Witkowski’s photograph reflects the ma- jor topics of this volume. It exemplifies the enormous destruction of cities, cultural heritage, and infrastructure