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Commemorating the Soviet Deportations of 1945 and Community-Building in Post-communist Upper Silesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

EWA OCHMAN
EWA OCHMAN*
Affiliation:
Department of Russian and East European Studies, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester, M13 9Pl; [email protected].
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Abstract

This article focuses on the remembrance of the deportations of Silesians to the Soviet Union in 1945, undertaken in Upper Silesia, Poland, after the collapse of communism. It explores the relationship between local elite-sponsored official remembrance of the deportations and the formation of regional identity in the context of the Upper Silesia's borderland locality and the post-war population movement. The article also investigates the role of public commemorations of the Silesian past in the construction of a Silesian national identity undertaken by the Silesian separatist movement that gained in popularity against the backdrop of the post-1989 de-industrialisation of the region, Poland's most important centre for coal mining industry.

La commémoration des déportations soviétiques de 1945 et la construction communautaire en haute-silésie postcommuniste

Cet article se concentre sur la commémoration des déportations de Silésiens vers l'Union Soviétique en 1945 après l'effondrement du communisme en Haute-Silésie polonaise. Il analyse la relation entre la mémoire officielle des déportations, soutenue par les élites locales, et la formation d'une identité régionale dans le contexte de la Haute-Silésie en tant que zone frontalière et des mouvements de population de l'après-guerre. L'auteur examine aussi le rôle des commémorations publiques du passé silésien dans la construction d'une identité nationale silésienne. Celle-ci fut le fait du mouvement séparatiste silésien qui gagna en popularité après 1989 face à la désindustrialisation que connut cette région, la plus importante de Pologne pour l'industrie du charbonnage.

Das gedenken an die sowjetischen deportationen von 1945 in der gemeinschaftsbildung im postkommunistischen oberschlesien

Dieser Artikel betrachtet das Gedenken an die Vetreibung von Schlesiern in die Sowjetunion um 1945, nach dem Kollaps des Kommunismus im polnischen Oberschlesien. Er ergründet die Beziehung zwischen der von den lokalen Eliten geförderten offiziellen Erinnerung an die Deportationen einerseits und der Herausbildung einer regionalen Identität im Kontext der Lage Oberschlesiens im Grenzgebiet und der Bevölkerungsbewegung in der Nachkriegszeit. Der Artikel untersucht außerdem die Funktion öffentlichen Gedenkens an die schlesische Vergangenheit im Rahmen der Entstehung einer nationalen schlesischen Identität. Diese Deutung wurde von der schlesischen Separatistenbewegung gefördert, welche im Rahmen der Deindustrialisierung der Region, Polens wichtigstem Zentrum für die Steinkohlenbergbauindustrie, nach 1989 an Popularität gewann.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , May 2009 , pp. 217 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 See, e.g., Brüggemann, Karsten and Kasekamp, Andres, ‘The Politics of History and the “War of Monuments” in Estonia’, Nationalities Papers, 36, 3 (2008), 425–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ingimundarson, Valur, ‘The Politics of Memory and the Reconstruction of Albanian National Identity in Postwar Kosovo’, History & Memory, 19, 1, (2007), 95–123CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Zisere, Bella, ‘The Memory of the Shoah in the Post-Soviet Latvia’, East European Jewish Affairs, 35, 2 (2005), 155–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Forest, Benjamin and Johnson, Juliet, ‘Unravelling the Threads of History: Soviet-Era Monuments and Post-Soviet National Identity in Moscow’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 93, 3 (2002), 524–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Temple, Mark, ‘The Politicization of History: Marshal Antonescu and Romania’, East European Politics and Societies, 10, 3 (1996), 457–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 See, e.g., Onken, Eva-Clarita, ‘The Baltic States and Moscow's 9 May Commemoration: Analysing Memory Politics in Europe’, Europe–Asia Studies, 59, 1 (2007), 23–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brubaker, Rogers and Feischmidt, Margit, ‘1848 in 1998: The Politics of Commemoration in Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 44, 4 (2002), 700–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See Sezneva, Olga, ‘Dual History: The Politics of the Past in Kaliningrad, Former Konigsberg’, in Czaplicka, John J. and eds., Composing Urban History and the Constitution of Civic Identities (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003), 58–85Google Scholar.

4 See Hann, Chris, ‘Postsocialist Nationalism: Rediscovering the Past in Southeast Poland’, Slavic Review 57, 4 (1998), 840–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Gorzelak, Grzegorz, ‘Decentralisation, Regional Development and Regional Policies’, in Blazyca, George and Rapacki, Ryszard, eds., Poland into the New Millennium (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001), 204–30Google Scholar.

6 The Volksliste policy in Upper Silesia was obligatory for all Upper Silesians in order to retain the qualified workforce essential to Silesian heavy industry. See Ingo Eser, ‘Niemcy na Górnym Śląsku’, in Włodzimierz Borodziej and Hans Lemberg, eds., Niemcy w Polsce 1945–1950 Wybór dokumentów, vol. 2 (Warsaw: NERITON, 2000), 291–331, 308 (German edition: Unsere Heimat ist uns ein fremdes Land geworden?: Die Deutschen östlich von Oder und Neiße. 1945–1950. Dokumente aus polnischen Archiven, vol. 2 (Marburg: Herder Institut, 2003)).

7 See, e.g., Tracz, Bogusław, Rok Ostatni – Rok Pierwszy: Gliwice 1945 (Gliwice: Muzeum w Gliwicach, 2004), 33–63Google Scholar; and Bonczol, Józef, ‘Styczeń i luty 1945 r. na ziemi gliwickiej i bytomskiej’, Rocznik Muzeum, 13 (1998), 241–51Google Scholar.

8 Between 1945 and 1949 more than 300,000 Germans were expelled from Upper Silesia. See Jankowiak, Stanisław, Wysiedlenie i emigracja ludności niemieckiej w polityce władz polskich w latach 1945–1970 (Warsaw: IPN, 2005), 155Google Scholar. See also Naimark, Norman M., Fires of Hatred Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 2001), 108–38Google Scholar.

9 See Madajczyk, Piotr, Przyłączenie Śląska opolskiego do Polski: 1945–1948 (Warsaw: ISP PAN, 1996), 169–219Google Scholar.

10 On forced labour and transit camps in post-war Poland see Kopka, Bogusław, Obozy pracy w Polsce 1944–1950 (Warsaw: Karta, 2002)Google Scholar.

11 See Banaś, Kornelia, ‘Kategorie osób deportowanych z Górnego Śląska do ZSRR w 1945 r.’, in Dziurok, Adam and Niedurny, Marcin, eds., Deportacje Górnoślązaków do ZSRR w 1945 roku, Konferencje IPN (Katowice: IPN, 2004), 51–66Google Scholar.

12 Banaś, ‘Kategorie osób’, 52.

13 See Jan Drabina, ed., Ofiary Stalinizmu na ziemi bytomskiej w latach 1945–1956 (Bytom: Towarzystwo Miłośników Bytomia, 1993), 255–85; and Zygmunt Woźniczka, Z Górnego Śląska do Sowieckich Łagrów (Katowice: Śląsk, 1996), 28–9.

14 See Gołasz, Zbigniew, Śląska Tragedia w Zabrzu w 1945: internowania i deportacje (Zabrze: Muzeum Miejskie, 2005), 17Google Scholar.

15 At present the figure of 90,000 is accepted by many historians under the condition that the category of deportees includes all those mobilised for work, those arrested as ‘enemies of the Soviet Union’ and POWs captured in Upper Silesia, regardless of whether they were perceived as Polish or German Upper Silesians. On the basis of lists of deportees put together between 1945 and 1946 by different Polish agencies trying to secure the return of Upper Silesians, Sylwester Fertacz estimated that at least 25,000 to 30,000 civilians of Polish nationality (Upper Silesians who were identified as such by the administration) were deported. See Sylwester Fertacz, ‘Problemy statystki Górnoślązaków deportowanych w 1945 r. do ZSSR’, in Dziurok and Niedurny, Deportacje, 41–50.

16 Back in Poland the Polish local authorities, the Central Directorate of the Mining Industry and the Polish Western Union tried to intervene in the case of the Upper Silesians (considered as Poles) at national and international level, but were unable to secure the release of deportees. See Stańczyk, Henryk, Od Sandomierza do Opola i Raciborza (Warsaw: Neriton, 1998), 270–4Google Scholar, and Woźniczka, Z Górnego Śląska, 39–47.

17 Fertacz, Sylwester, ‘Deportacje mieszkańców Górnego Śląska do ZSRR w 1945 roku’, in Łach, Stanisław, ed., Władze komunistyczne wobec ziem odzyskanych po II wojnie światowej (Słupsk: Wydawnictwo Uczelniane WSP, 1997), 252Google Scholar.

18 See Linek, Bernard, ‘De-Germanization and Re-Polonisation in Upper Silesia, 1945–1950’, in Ther, Philipp and Siljak, Ana, eds., Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944–1948 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 121–34Google Scholar.

19 See Dziurok, Adam, ‘Za mało niemieccy, za mało polscy’, Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 9, 10 (2001), 34–45Google Scholar.

20 See ‘Wydarzenia’ and ‘Kalendarium’ in Biuletyn IPN for 2001–2008 (a monthly published by the IPN). Information about commemorative initiatives is also available on the IPN's website, www.ipn.gov.pl/.

21 For state-sponsored commemorative initiatives see Bulletins of Culture and Media Committee of Sejm of the Republic of Poland, available at orka.sejm.gov.pl/SQL.nsf/pracekom5?OpenAgent&KFS (last visited 12 July 2008). See also, e.g., Tymowski, Andrzej W., ‘Apologies for Jedwabne and Modernity’, East European Politics and Society, 16, 1 (2002), 291–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steinlauf, Michael C., Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. On the Polish state's eastern politic of memory see Snyder, Timothy, ‘Memory of Sovereignty and Sovereignty over Memory: Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, 1939–1999’, in Müller, Jan-Werner, ed., Memory and Power in Post-war Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 39–58Google Scholar.

22 See a documentary, Tragedia Ślązaków, produced by Ewelina Puczek and Harald Szołtysek, 1991. Accessed at Dyspozytura Taśm i Kaset Wizyjnych, Telwizja Polska S.A., Oddział Katowice, sygn. D1284.

23 On the situation regarding the German minority in post-war Poland see Madajczyk, Piotr, Niemcy polscy 1944–1989 (Warsaw: Oficyna Naukowa, 2001)Google Scholar. On the situation after 1989 see Berlińska, Danuta, Mniejszość niemiecka na Śląsku Opolskim: w poszukiwaniu tożzsamości (Opole: Instytut Śląski, 1999), 188–252Google Scholar.

24 A video recording of the extraordinary session of Zabrze city council made on 25 February 1991. I would like to thank Bogusław Szyguła, the curator of the heritage centre KWK Knurów in Upper Silesia, for presenting me with a copy of the video.

25 Speech by the representative of the Silesian voivode, Bogumił Piecha.

26 Speech by Antoni Kondratowski, the chairman of the regional branch of Związek Sybiraków, an organisation dedicated to commemorating the 1939–41 deportations of Kresowiacy. Kondratowski recalled a testimony of a member of the Silesian intelligentsia interned in winter 1945. Apparently, within the group of 3,000 Upper Silesians deported from Katowice, there were members of AK and participants in the Warsaw Uprising, but no miners.

27 For example, the speech by MP Elżbieta Seferowicz.

28 Speech by MP Jan Rzymełka. Both Rzymełka's grandfathers lost their lives in 1945.

29 On the slippery nature of Upper Silesians’ self-identifications see Szmeja, Maria, Niemcy? Polacy? Ślązacy! (Kraków: UNIVERSITAS, 2000)Google Scholar, and Berlińska, Mniejszość niemiecka.

30 When applying for German citizenship Silesians had to demonstrate proof of German descent. Often the only documents they could produce related to their grandparents’ or parents’ wartime loyalty to Nazi Germany. See on this point Esbenshade, Richard S., ‘Remembering to Forget: Memory, History, National Identity in Post-war East-central Europe’, Representations, 49 (1995), 72–96, 82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 For example, Gliwice town council erected a monument in memory of all the inhabitants of Gliwice who had lost their lives during wars and violent conflicts, including the victims of 1945. See Resolution Rada Miejska Gliwice, no. XIX/417/2000, Archiwum Urzędu Miasta Gliwice.

32 The town councils of Bytom, Chorzów, Katowice, Knurów and Rybnik co-financed a documentary about the deportations, Przemilczana Tragedia, commissioned by IPN and produced by Arka Górnoślązka in 2004.

33 See Magazyn Bytomski IX. Ofiary Stalinizmu na Ziemi Bytomskiej 1945–1956, Bytom 1993.

34 Statute of the society accessed at the heritage centre KWK Knurów in June 2006.

35 In 1996 the society was a recipient of the Korfanty Prize, awarded by Związek Górnośląski, and Laur Knurowa, awarded by Knurów town council.

36 On one hand, this support was welcomed – especially since many members of the Society were inexperienced in producing war memories – but, on the other, it was overpowering. Henryk Stawiarski, the chairman of the society, claimed that some members were unhappy about receiving the Korfanty Prize, which commemorates the achievements of the Polish Silesian nationalist Wojciech Korfanty, as Silesians suffered at the hands of both Polish and German nationalists. Author's interview with Henryk Stawiarski, conducted in June 2006.

37 Krystyna Szumilas, Oświadczenie w sprawie 60 rocznicy deportacji mieszkańców Górnego Śląska do łagrów w ZSRR, Statement No 874, 97th Session, IV tenure, 17 Feb. 2005. Szumilas's statements can be accessed at orka.sejm.gov.pl/ArchAll2.nsf/Glowny4kad (last visited 7 July 2008).

38 See Deportacje Górnoślązaków do ZSRR w 1945 roku, an exhibition catalogue (IPN, 2003), 4.

39 See IPN's account of this project: Rajd historyczny ‘Szlakiem pamięci – deportacje Górnoślązaków do ZSRR w 1945 rok’, at www.ipn.gov.pl/portal/pl/385/4744/ (last visited 7 July 2008).

40 See Dariusz Pietrucha, ‘Deportacje Górnoślązaków do ZSRR w 1945 – losy deportowanych’, an audio-visual presentation that accompanied the project.

41 See, e.g., Piotr Barciński, Stanisław ˙Zelichowski, Interpelacja w sprawie zajęcia się przez rząd RP losami górników deportowanych ze Śląska w głąb ZSRR w 1945 roku, Interpellation No 97, 9th Session, I tenure, 25 Feb.1992.

42 See, e.g., Tadeusz Kijonka, Interpelacja w sprawie podjęcia działań w celu ustalenia skali strat biologicznych. . ., Interpellation No 218, 21st Session, X tenure, 9 Feb.1990.

43 Jan Rzymełka, Oświadczenie w sprawie wystawy “Deportacje Górnoślązaków do ZSRR” w 1945 roku, Statement No 548, 62th Session, IV tenure, 26 Nov. 2003. Rzymełka's statements can be accessed at orka.sejm.gov.pl/ArchAll2.nsf/Glowny4kad (last visited 7 July 2008).

44 Szumilas, Oświadczenie.

45 On war monuments in post-communist Poland see Kula, Marcin, ‘Messages of Stones. The Changing Symbolism of the Urban Landscape in Warsaw in the Post-Communist Era’, Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and Societies, 20 (2007), 1–55Google Scholar.

46 See n. 30 above.

47 Some 280,000 Polish citizens have applied for a German passport. However, according to the 2002 census only 150,000 citizens of Poland declared German nationality, meaning that 130,000 holders of German passports chose not to admit their German nationality. See Krzysztof Karwat, ‘My naród śląski’, Tygodnik Powszechny, 6 July 2003.

48 Gorzelak, ‘Decentralisation’, 213.

49 After a short period with parliamentary representatives (1991–3) the RAŚ has been unsuccessful in getting further MPs elected, as a new law established a benchmark of 5 per cent of the national vote before parties could be represented in parliament. However, if Silesians were recognised as a national minority, RAŚ would be exempt from the 5 per cent rule.

50 In 2001, and again in 2004, the Court ruled that Poland had acted within its rights, as it was reasonable to claim that the true reason for registering the ZLNŚ was ‘to circumvent the provisions of the electoral law’. The Court observed, however, that ‘it was not its task to express an opinion on whether or not Silesians were a “national minority”‘. See Gorzelik and Others v. Poland, Human Rights Case Digest, 12 (2001), 957–61, 960.

51 See the website of Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji, www.mswia.gov.pl/wai/en/10/56/ (last visited 3 July 2008). For the parlimentary interpretations of this result see Informacja prezesa Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego na temat wyników Narodowego Spisu Ludności w 2002 r., Komisja Mniejszości Narodowych i Etnicznych, Sejm RP, Biuletyn nr 33, 29 Jul. 2003 at orka.sejm.gov.pl/Biuletyn.nsf/0/99F3D9C15C5A91F2C1256D89002ED71B?OpenDocument/ (last visited 5 July 2008).

52 Dorota Simonides (senator in the Polish upper house), quoted in ‘A Place of One's Own’, Warsaw Voice, 31 July 2003.

53 Karwat, ‘My naród śląski’. See also Aleksandra Klich and Józef Krzyk, ‘Autonomia to dla Śląska sprawa życia i śmierci. Rozmowa z Kazimierzem Kutzem.’, Gazeta Wybrocza, 16 Dec. 2006.

54 Author's interview with Jerzy Gorzelik, the leader of RAŚ, conducted in August 2007.

55 For a summary of the myth see Krzysztof Kluczniok's (one of the leaders of RAŚ) ‘Tragedia Górnoślązaków upamiętniona’, IRG Gazeta Lokalna, February 2006.

56 See, e.g., Krzysztof Kluczniok, ‘Dom Współpracy’, IRG Gazeta Lokalna, Jan. 2004; ‘Sprawozdanie z działalności Koła RAŚ’, IRG Gazeta Lokalna, December 2005 and ‘Przemilczana Tragedia’, IRG Gazeta Lokalna, March 2006.

57 Correspondence between Henryk Stawiarski, the chairman of the Society of the Memory of Silesian Tragedy of 1945 and Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, Katowice IPN, 10 Feb. 2006. I would like to thank Mr Stawiarski for providing me with copies of his correspondence with IPN.

58 See ‘Chcą dalszego śledztwa’, Gazeta Wyborcza, 5 Feb. 2005. The investigation was discontinued in 2006 due to the death of all members of the GOKO and the impossibility of identifying those directly involved in the deportations. See Postanowienie o umorzeniu śledztwa S8/00Zk, Oddziałowa Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, IPN, Katowice, 30 June 2006.