The Impermanence Syndrome
The Impermanence Syndrome
This chapter begins with Joanna Konopinka's account of her arrival in Wroclaw. Her words illustrate vividly the enormous discrepancy between the actual experiences of Polish settlers and the patriotic appeals of the government, which spoke of the western territories as ancient Polish soil, a land of milk and honey that was to be resettled after centuries and that promised prosperity to all comers. Polish settlers arriving in the western territories were initially struck by a strong sense of foreignness. The land was foreign, and so were the people they met there, Germans and Poles alike. The settlers had left behind the familiarity of their homes and social surroundings only to find themselves in a kind of no man's land that no longer appeared to belong to Germany but was not yet a part of Poland.
Keywords: Joanna Konopinka, Wroclaw, Polish settlers, patriotic appeals, western territories, foreignness, Germans, Poles
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
