Poszarpane biografie, czyli o przesiedlonych i wypędzonych kobietach i dzieciach
The fragmented “biography” of displacement and resettlement: Displaced and resettled German and Polish women and children

Summary/Abstract: The article presents an analysis of interviews with displaced and resettled German and Polish women. These interviews were made by two feminist NGOs and published on DVD recordings. These sources highlight a gap in historical research on displacement and resettlement, as women and children’s experiences were overlooked. The narrated memories of women who were children at the time of the Second World War reveal a fragmented yet common “biography” of displacement and resettlement. In this “biography”, experiences such as the loss of home, hunger, fear, and rejection by the inhabitants of the destination locations have a transnational character. The relevance of surviving and coping with everyday life on the road to uncertainty for biographical research becomes evident here while the concept of a fragmented “biography” of displacement and resettlement is framed in terms of a “biography” of placelessness (Ortlosigkeit).

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