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Catalogue of Exhibition  “Between Uncertainty and Confidence. The Art, Culture and Everyday Life of Polish Displaced Persons in Germany 1945-1955, Dortmund, 2016.
Catalogue of Exhibition “Between Uncertainty and Confidence. The Art, Culture and Everyday Life of Polish Displaced Persons in Germany 1945-1955, Dortmund, 2016.

Between Uncertainty and Confidence.

The Art, Culture and Everyday Life of Polish Displaced Persons in Germany 1945-1955

 

Introduction

 

The end of the Second World War liberated people in Germany from wartime events and the National Socialist regime. Around 8,000,000 people who had been transported from their homes to Germany during the war and survived forced labour, the concentration camps and civilian labour, were also liberated. They were regarded as "Displaced Persons", to be cared for immediately.  

But it was not long before huge difficulties arose, especially for Polish Displaced Persons (DPs). The upshot was that many of them were prevented from returning home for many years and some of them were never able to return. Despite the lengthy periods of uncertainty life had to go on and every day conditions had to be organised in an alien country. But why did Polish DPs have such great difficulties in returning home quickly? What did the everyday life of Polish DPs in the camps look like? How did the DPs and the German population react to one another? And there again, there was another special feature: the Polish enclave of Maczków...

 

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