The Power of the Net. Or the Network of Polish Women in Germany

In many of the stories of Polish mothers that I heard, the promotion of their children's Polish language skills emerged as an important element in their identity. Some of them came to Germany as children themselves. These include Dr. Katarzyna Mol-Wolf, publisher and editor-in-chief of the magazine "EMOTION", who was a guest at the women's brunch in Hamburg at the end of March. After the project "PolMotion – Bewegung der polnischen Frauen" ["PolMotion – Movement of Polish Women"] of the association agitPolska e. V. had been completed, we organised the brunch together with other women at the headquarters and with the support of the ZEIT Foundation, Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius. Dr. Mol-Wolf still speaks Polish and feels, as she says herself, more Polish than German because of the language she learnt in her childhood. However, she admitted that it was not easy for her to get her daughter to develop her Polish language skills.

Fortunately, more and more initiatives and institutions are emerging in many cities, which in their various events and activities allow encounters with the language as it is lived and not only with the language learned in school. In Berlin, this is the aforementioned association "Polki w Berlinie", whose activities are also aimed at women who want to maintain contact with the Polish language and promote their children's knowledge of the Polish language. The Berlin association SprachCafé Polnisch e. V. [Polish Language Cafe e. V.] also stands out for its lively offerings in this field, organising meetings, events and courses for parents and children initiated by Polish-speaking mothers.

The WIR zur Förderung der deutsch-polnischen Zweisprachigkeit Hamburg e. V. [WIR Association for the Promotion of German-Polish Bilingualism Hamburg e. V.], which has recently started its activities in Hamburg, organises literary events on weekends devoted to both classics and newly published children's books. The aim of the association is to further children in their German-Polish bilingualism so that they feel at home in both languages and cultures, while parents can exchange their experiences with bilingualism.  

These initiatives not only offer space for encounters with language and culture, but they also give children the opportunity to meet their peers and discover that other children and adults speak the language of their mums and dads, whom they usually only know from home –  and that even in public!

The above-mentioned WIR association attaches particular importance to the status of the Polish language as a language of origin, but other organisations and individuals are also involved here, which join together in informal initiatives whose common denominator is that Polish origin represents an added value for all and is no reason for shame. "I am not ashamed to be Polish, (...) I respect my own country", says Justyna Rygielska, the initiator of the "Chustopogadanki" ["Baby sling chat-time"] for Polish-speaking mothers who are concerned with the correct use of baby slings.

These organisations and the activities they carry out thus fulfil typical tasks carried out by non-profit organisations. They enable people with similar interests to engage in joint activities, thereby enriching the lives of these people and the community. They are concerned about the common good, act in the interest of minorities, promote social integration and in some cases complement the efforts of the state, for example with regard to access to language education, and even initiate processes of social change.

These organisations are an essential element of democracy and civil society. Their relatively small number does not reflect the importance of the Polish minority in Germany, which is the second largest group after its Turkish counterparts, whereby we represent almost 900,000 women migrants from countries in the European Union. Nonetheless, we are still invisible in decision-making bodies, politics, culture and the media.

But what prevents us from appearing in public life? Can membership in associations and cooperation improve the participation and presence of Polish women in order to strengthen our influence on the social and cultural everyday life of the country in which we live?