Accounts on Forced Migration: A Gender Sensitive View on Contested Urban Fabric

• In Event: Reclaiming Urban Space: Fighting Unequal Representation and Spatial Marginalization in Urban Narratives

Abstract

This contribution takes a look at fictional and nonfictional accounts through a gendered lens and will show to which extent mapping female narratives provides us with new insights on the German-Polish relations in shared and contested city spaces that faced this large scale population exchange. Many cities that belong to the Western part of Poland today suffered massive war damage in 1945. Right after the end of World War II, Germans had to leave the country while Polish citizens from the former Polish Eastern territories were settled in the newly acquired parts in the west. As much as forced migration is a well-researched topic, the event often lacks localization in the specific urban space.

Author

• Elisa-Maria Hiemer, Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe (Germany)