(Late) resettlers from Poland in temporary accommodation in Herne-Eickel

The aim of the project was to provide various perspectives on the Ruhr area with the participation of ten photographers (of which I was the only female photographer). We had one year in which to work on the topic. The project was funded by grants from the Ruhr Culture Foundation (Kulturstiftung Ruhr). The contemporary depiction of the Ruhr area was intended to support the long-term project to create a photo and film archive on the history of the region. The results of the overall project were first exhibited in the Museum Folkwang and subsequently at additional locations. The photographs became part of the Ruhr Museum’s photographic collection. At that time I discovered my love of long-term documentation, and the topic of cultural diversity in the Ruhr district has been part of my photographic work to the present day.

In 1985 I used my analogue Leica M6 to photograph a very broad range of “nationalities” on black-and-white film material. One group consisted of (late) resettlers from Poland,[1] who in the mid-1980s migrated primarily from Upper Silesia to Wanne-Eickel. For hundreds of years, Upper Silesia was culturally and historically a region with a strong German character. However, thanks to a complex mix of Polish and Czech influences, it developed its own Upper Silesian identity. Between 1980–85 alone, three quarters of the total of 167,000 resettlers from Poland who arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany came from areas in Upper Silesia.[2]

The German Red Cross (DRK) supported the (late) resettlers in Wanne-Eickel. The DRK did a lot to assist settlers during the early phase in their new, unfamiliar, German home. Although most of the people who had come from Poland already spoke German, it was important to offer more intensive German-language courses at the Red Cross. Leisure activities were organised, carnival was celebrated, the DRK helped people find apartments and helped families reunite, as in many cases the men or women initially arrived without their spouse. The (late) resettlers were housed in a city-owned residential building dating from the 1950s in Eickel, a district in the city of Herne. Prior to this, the building was used to house Vietnamese people, and later it housed other refugees. Each inhabitant had their own room. Each floor had a shared bathroom and kitchen. 

I visited the inhabitants regularly there over a long period. In this way, photographs of the (late) resettlers’ everyday lives in their temporary accommodation, at celebrations in the DRK premises, and in their own first homes in Germany were created.

Brigitte Kraemer, March 2026

(In 2022 the Ruhr Museum, with help from the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, managed to purchase the entire work of Brigitte Kraemer. The museum owns around 360,000 negatives and prints in black-and-white and colour.)