Trauma of War, Trauma of Exile: Early Testimonies and Witness Accounts of Wartime Émigrés and Refugees from Poland

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The panel explores the early testimonies and personal accounts of Polish refugees and émigrés related to their experiences and survival during WWII. It analyzes the literary reflections and memories of Józef Czapski and Zygmunt Haupt, the extensive documentation efforts by the representatives of the Polish government-in-exile to collect thousands of testimonies of former Polish deportees and prisoners in the USSR, and the impact of wartime displacement on Cold War-era Sovietologists, such as Adam Ulam or Richard Pipes. By zooming in on the firsthand accounts, memories, and intellectual contributions, the discussion highlights how personal experiences of trauma and exile shaped historical narratives and academic perspectives not only on Soviet repressions but, more broadly, on WWII events.

Sub Unit

• History: 1900-1945

Chair

• Ioana Macrea-Toma, Open Society Archives / Central European University

Papers

• Émigré Testimonies and Memories: WWII through Józef Czapski’s Diaries and Zygmunt Haupt’s Short Stories - Barbara Brigida Krupa, Stanford U

• Wartime Exile in Memories of the Cold War Sovietologists from Poland - Sławomir Lukasiewicz, John Paul II Catholic U of Lublin (Poland)

• Voices from the Darkness: Early Witness Testimonies of WWII and the Gulag - Katharina Friedla, Hoover Institution

Discussant

• Irena Grudzinska Gross, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)