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Poles in Germany: Roads to visibility

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Bambini, 1998. Ausstellungsansicht in der St. Elisabeth-Kirche, Berlin, Gallery Weekend 2015, Galerie ŻAK | BRANICKA, Berlin

Mediathek Sorted

Media library
  • The Mausoleum of Queen Richeza at the Cathedral of Cologne
  • The coats-of-arms of Hedwig Jagiellonica and Georg the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut in the castle at Burghausen.
  • A stained glass painting in the Landshut town hall. The window is in the main staircase. The picture shows Georg the Rich and Hedwig of Poland.
  • Philips Galle (1537-1612): Joannes Alasco, 1567.
  • Count Athanasius Raczyński, 1826
  • The Raczynski Palace at Königsplatz (ca. 1875)
  • Empfang der Polen in Leipzig 1830
  • Transit routes taken by Polish fighters in the November uprising and the German organisations providing help to Poland 1831 – 1833 (overview). H. Asmus, 1981. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz
  • The Most Memorable Days in the Year 1830, a memorial tablet in 12 tableaux, Verlag Johann Andreas Endter, Nürnberg, 1830, engraving, coloured, 30.3 x 43.5 cm
  • A special postage stamp issued by the German Postal Service to mark the anniversary of “175 Years Hambach Festival”
  • Ludwik Mierosławski (1814-1878)
  • Józef Ignacy Kraszewski around the year 1879
  • Kraszewski-Museum in Dresden
  • „Chopin spielt im Salon des Fürsten Anton Radziwill in Berlin“
  • Wiarus Polski vom 3. Juli 1907
  • Sachsengänger bei der Ankunft in Berlin, 1909
  • Cover page of the first edition of “Narodowiec”
  • Carl Teufel: Künstleratelier Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski, München 1889
  • Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf v. Menzel in the workshop of the painter Adalbert von Kossak.
  • Rosa Luxemburg speaking at the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, August 1907.
  • Helena und Stanisław Sierakowski, Hochzeitsfoto, 1910
  • Wedding telegram with two men in national costume and the cartouche with a white eagle, colour print, 1913.
  • Roman Witold Ingarden, study record Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg with signature Edmund Husserls, 1916
  • "Pola Negri - unsterblich", Dokumentation von 2017

    Eine Filmdokumentation über Leben und Schaffen eines der größten Stummfilmstars in Deutschland polnischer Herkunft.
  • Drei Tage im November. Józef Piłsudski und die polnische Unabhängigkeit 1918"

    Von Magdeburg in die Unabhängigkeit Polens - ein Film über einen polnischen Mythos.
  • The house in the Magdeburg Fortress where Józef Piłsudski was interned.
  • “Radziwill Palais”, view of the “Red Salon” and the winter garden of the building, ca. 1927.
  • The religious ceremony of "Days of Faith of Our Fathers" in Herne, 1930
  • Werbeplakat für den Film Ich liebe alle Frauen (1935) mit Jan Kiepura
  • Dziennik Berliński
  • The Jankowski Family – Ruhr Poles in Herne 1936
  • Polnischer Zwangsarbeiter beim Milchfahren, ca. 1943
  • Polish fashion magazine “Moda” in Niederlangen (Emsland), 1945
  • Soldat der polnischen 1. Panzerdivision
  • Józef Szajna in Maczków (Haren) on the Ems, 1946.
  • Friedhofskapelle im DP-Lager Flossenbürg, 1947
  • The film producer Artur "Atze" Brauner.
  • Artur Brauner - Ein Jahrhundertleben zwischen Polen und Deutschland

    Eine Filmdokumentation über die legendäre Persönlichkeit des deutschen und internationalen Films.
  • Tadeusz Nowakowski, ca. 1950
  • Teresa Nowakowski (101) im Gespräch mit Sohn Krzysztof, London 2019 (auf Polnisch).

    Teresa Nowakowski (101) im Gespräch mit Sohn Krzysztof, London 2019.

    Teresa Nowakowski (101) im Gespräch mit Sohn Krzysztof, London 2019 (auf Polnisch).
  • Fronleichnam in der Siedlung für polnische Displaced Persons in Dortmund Eving, 1951
  • Stefan Arczyński (right) with a friend in Moscow. Photographer unknown, 1956.
  • Mieczysław Wejman, „Der Schlaf ist Bruder des Todes“, Wildflecken, 1971
  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki in the ZDF studio Programme title: Aus gegebenem Anlass - Marcel Reich-Ranicki talks to Thomas Gottschalk
  • Karol Broniatowski

    Memorial to the Jews deported from Berlin, 1991
  • Historische Vereinsfahnen des Bundes der Polen in Deutschland in der St. Anna Kirche der Polnischen Katholischen Mission in Dortmund. Die Fahnen gehören zum Bestand der Porta Polonica.
  • Film "The Madman and the Nun" - St. Ignacy Witkiewicz, Filmstudio Transform, Director: Janina Szarek

    Film "The Madman and the Nun" - St. Ignacy Witkiewicz, Filmstudio Transform, Director: Janina Szarek
  • WORMHOLE, 2008

    A video installation in a public space. Steel construction, glass, video, monitor, DVD player. Ø = 100 cm, H = 110 cm. Copyright: Karina Smigla-Bobinski.
  • Andrzej Wirth in his apartment in Berlin.
  • Interview with Leszek Zadlo

    Interview with Leszek Zadlo

    Interview with Leszek Zadlo
  • Köln, Hohenzollernbrücke
  • ZEITFLUG - Hamburg

    © all films: Stefan Szczygieł. Courtesy: Claus Friede*Contemporary Art, Hamburg.
  • Lech Wieleba on the double bass.
  • Empty Images, 2000/2006. Bild (Berlin), 12th January 2006
  • Monika Czosnowska, Johanna
  • Polonia Dortmund 2012
  • In Blau, Małgosia Jankowska, 2015, Aquarell, Filzstift auf Papier, 100 x 150 cm.
  • Katarzyna Myćka
  • Der Planet von Susanna Fels

    Ein Kunstfilm von Susanna Fels mit den Fotos von u.a. Annette Hudemann, 2019.
  • Agata Madejska, RISE, 2018. Installation view, ∼ =, Impuls Bauhaus, Zeche Zollverein, Essen, 2019.
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Bambini, 1998
Magdalena Abakanowicz, Bambini, 1998. Ausstellungsansicht in der St. Elisabeth-Kirche, Berlin, Gallery Weekend 2015, Galerie ŻAK | BRANICKA, Berlin

Migratory people

Over the centuries, people have migrated from Polish to German territories. Generally speaking, though, this was not mass migration, as opposed to the migration movements from west to east which, since the High Middle Ages, had seen large populations of German-speaking people streaming into eastern Central Europe in the course of territorial expansion (“Ostsiedlung”). Representatives from the elite in particular made to move to the West. These included a number of Polish princesses, predominantly from the Jagiellonian dynasty. The most well known of these must surely have been Jadwiga (Hedwig), a daughter of King Kasimir IV, whose wedding to Duke Georg the Rich of Bavaria-Landshut in 1475 was celebrated with a lavish celebration.

But there were also other reasons to migrate to the West: Merchants from Polish lands, often Jews, sought out the large trading towns and fairs in Breslau or Leipzig; some from Danzig, often Germans, carried out their business throughout half of Europe. Moreover, the Jewish communities in the Old Empire maintained close contact with the much livelier Jewish centres in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Many centres of European learning were also to be found in German lands, which is why large numbers of Polish students found their way to Cologne, Heidelberg, Leipzig or Königsberg. Many academics from Poland stayed in the Empire, for instance Matthäus from Kraków, who was Bishop of Worms from 1405 to 1410, or Johannes a Lasco, who established the Protestant church in East Frisia in the 1540s. A highpoint of the migration of the Polish elite was when August II and August III from the Saxon Wettin dynasty were on the Polish throne between 1697 and 1763 and Dresden attracted the nobility, officers, statesmen and artists from Poland. Jan Henryk Dąbrowski, who grew up in Hoyerswerda, became famous as one of Napoleon’s generals.

Worth mentioning are two settlement areas of Polish-speaking populations in regions that later belonged to the German Empire or to Prussia: The Masurians in southern Prussia, who had migrated to there from Mazovia since the 14th century, and the Polish population in Silesia, who were predominantly able to establish themselves in a large part of Upper Silesia.