Liberating Dialogue and the Arts: The Experience of Polish Settlers in the Western Territories

• In Event: Art, Liberation, and the Emigration Experience

Abstract

After the Second World War, Poland obtained substantial territories in the west, which were quickly populated by settlers brought from other parts of the country, mainly, though not exclusively, from its lost eastern lands. For some time, Germans and Poles coexisted in the Western Territories, but soon the former were expelled to Germany. This situation raised the ethical problem of the possibility of dialogue between the two nations in the immediate aftermath of the war and later, including the present day. Drawing on some Polish literature, the paper will look at how art can facilitate such a dialogue.

Author

• Leszek Koczanowicz, SWPS U (Poland)