Radio Flora from Hanover – in Polish

A major shift
 

During the 2000s, the alternative radio landscape in Lower Saxony changed rapidly. Radio Flora also came up against new challenges and attempted to overcome them by making several swinging cuts to its programmes. Despite these efforts, on 1 April 2009, the terrestrial frequency was awarded to another initiative that was willing to follow a much more mainstream path. For “Polenflug”, this was the end of the road. The people who spent the longest number of years working on the programme were Grażyna Kamień-Söffker, Dorota Szymańska, Zbigniew Kaczmarek (after leaving his author’s programme as a features presenter) and Teresa Czaniecka-Kufer – 11 years, Grażyna Słomka and Katarzyna Zentner – 10, Agnieszka Foit – 8 years, and Mira Duszek – 6 years.

However, the management at Radio Flora decided to continue broadcasting as an Internet radio station. Of the “Polenflug” team, Grażyna Kamień-Söffker and Grażyna Słomka remained loyal to their original station and still present their own, regular self-authored programmes today. “Salonik Literacki”, which has been an ongoing feature of Radio Flora since 2002, also survived the changes.

The podcast as a new form of expression
 

In September 2009, the former creators of “Polenflug” launched another new project: the radio podcast Polenflug09. In light of the dynamic developments in social media, we felt that this format was more in keeping with the times. It offered greater artistic freedoms, without a time limit or restrictions with regard to the topics covered. The first group of people who helped create the podcast included Teresa Czaniecka-Kufer, Agnieszka Foit, Zbigniew Kaczmarek, Grażyna Kamień-Söffker, André Keller and Katarzyna Zentner. The “Salonik Literacki” was also given its own regular slot in the podcast. The platform is also open to guests who want to try out their skills in the new medium. As well as individual contributions, two projects were implemented in the area of information provision, which involved the entire team. “Nowa Polonia” (“The new Polonia”) focused on the structural changes in the Polish community in Lower Saxony. The aim of the “Walizka” (“Suitcase”) project, meanwhile, was to provide information, based on real-life examples, about the rights of Polish citizens who are planning to move to Lower Saxony.

A return in hybrid form: “PolenflugNeo”
 

At a meeting of the podcast team in 2017, the idea was put forward of returning to Radio Flora with a weekly programme in Polish. Since 2018, self-authored programmes focusing on different topic areas have been back on air on Radio Flora, this time as “PolenflugNeo”. And once again, the familiar words can be heard from the Radio Flora studio: A teraz Polska! Now that the hour-long programme is available as an online livestream, it can be heard by members of the Polish community all over the world. Currently, the editorial board consists of Teresa Czaniecka-Kufer, Zofia Delest, Katarzyna Piątkowska-Durka, together with Marek and Marcel Durka, Grażyna Kamień-Söffker, Waldemar Kostrzębski and Izabela Nawrat. They are supported by Zofia Ścierska, Katarzyna Janiszewska, Antek Stiller and Grażyna Słomka. Recently, the programme again began to incorporate the features contributed by Dariusz Muszer. In parallel, selected radio contributions are also published in the podcast.

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The structure of the Polish community in Lower Saxony has changed over time. Nowadays, in the 2020s, most of the Polish citizens who live here have settled here thanks to the EU Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons in Germany. You can hear Polish spoken not only on the streets and in schools, but also in a large number of businesses, local authorities and institutions. The Polish community now also wants different things from “its” radio. Since social media have taken on the “3 I’s” principle – information, integration, identity forging – people now mainly expect the radio programmes to pay attention to and value the projects and achievements among the Polish community. And of course, they also want to hear reports about life among the Polonia in other countries, and what can be learned from this in Germany. Since we work as volunteers and have no obligations towards any sponsors, we can respond quickly and flexibly to the needs of our community. The media skills that we have acquired over the years and the network that we have succeeded in building enable us to initiate spontaneous support campaigns for our listeners if an emergency arises. The task of preserving the collective memory of the Polish community in Lower Saxony is also rapidly gaining in importance. For example, we are being contacted by an increasing number of organisations an initiatives asking us to share contributions from our archive that document their activities over the past 25 years. 

Teresa Czaniecka-Kufer und Grażyna Kamień-Söffker, July 2025