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  • Roman Polański in a happy mood with Peter Glossop at rehearsals for Giuseppe Verdi's opera “Rigoletto”, Munich 1976

    Roman Polański in Munich: between fame and infamy

    In 1976/77 the filmmaker Roman Polański was entrusted with a new staging of Verdi's “Rigoletto” at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

  • Piłsudski and Sosnkowski during their internment in the Magdeburg Fortress, 1918

    Józef Piłsudski in German prisons

    Magdeburg is known in Poland above all as the place where Józef Piłsudski was interned. The fortress there is a frequent reminder of the imprisonment of the leader of the Polish legions and one of the...

  • The cemetery at the Perlacher Forst, Munich

    Polish graves at the Perlacher Forst cemetery in Munich

    There are many Polish graves in the Perlacher Forst in Munich. Polish victims of justice who were sentenced to death by National Socialist courts and executed with a hatchet in the nearby Stadelheim p...

  • Helena Bohle-Szacki

    Helena Bohle-Szacki

    Pół Żydówka i pół Niemka, urodzona w wielokulturowym Białymstoku: Helena Bohle-Szacki była pierwsza polska powojenna projektantka mody, o której usłyszał świat za żelazną kurtyną, a także ikona polski...

  • Andrzej Vincenz, Breslau 1989

    Andrzej Vincenz

    The linguist, Slavist, Polish publicist and professor at the University of Heidelberg and Göttingen Andrzej Vincenz was born on 13 March 1922 in Lemberg.

  • Information Bulletin AK (in Polish), No. 11 and 12, 1948

    Information Bulletin AK (in Polish), No. 11 and 12, 1948

    "Biuletyn Informacyjny AK in the American occupation zone" (Information Bulletin AK) was a monthly magazine in Polish.

  • Emilia Smechowski

    Emilia Smechowski

    Emilia Smechowski's book "Wir Strebermigranten" is less a family story than a description of the collective attitude of Polish migrants in the final phase of communism.

  • The Jankowski, parents with children, 1936 in Herne

    The Jankowski Family – Ruhr Poles in Herne

    Die Geschichte der Familie Jankowski aus Herne gehört sicherlich zu den „klassischen“ Schicksalen der Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts ins Ruhrgebiet eingewanderten Polen.

  • The families Tomczak, Galewsky, Jankowiak and Kobuczyński in front of the house of the Tomasz/Galewsky family, Ziegelstr. 63b, Osterfeld. 1929.

    Remigration or return? Back to the old homeland as a Ruhr Pole

    The history of the Tomczak family's emigration to the Ruhr area begins in 1918 in the small village of Orkowo, in the district of Śrem (Province of Poznan). After 100 years in Oberhausen, it leads bac...

  • Portrait of Major Dr Bolesława Zawalicz-Mowińskiego (1903–1993),  ca. 1947.

    Bolesław Zawalicz-Mowiński

    Bolesław Zawalicz-Mowiński was the founder of the Association of Polish Refugees (ZPU) in West Germany as well as its first chairman.

  • Hanging the border post with the flag of “Nowa Amerika”. On the right: Andrzej Łazowski.

    Słubfurt and Nowa Amerika

    The town Słubfurt is part of a project called “Nowa Amerika”.

  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Hamburg 1960

    "MRR": His Life

    Marcel Reich-Ranicki once said about himself: “I am 50% Polish, 50% German and 100% Jewish”. In Germany he has gone down in history as the “Pope of German Literature”: an equally entertaining and erud...

  • S.S. „Scythia“ der Reederei Cunard White Star, 1949

    Aus Deutschland nach Kanada, 1949

    Eine Postkarte von der Auswanderung nach Kanada der Familie Anna und Feliks Chudzikowski.

  • Polish and German members of the Schoolbook Commission at the award ceremony for the Viadrina Prize in June 2017.

    The German-Polish Textbook Commission

    The aim was to avoid controversial topics and the dissemination of prejudices and propaganda about Poland and Germany. The contents of history and geography textbooks in the past often reflected the s...

  • „Für mich ist Weihnachten eine totale Konstante. An Weihnachten ist alles so, wie’s immer war.“ Mark Forster im Interview mit VOX TV, 2017

    Mark Forster und sein „Lulajże, Jezuniu“

    Mark Forster – Die Weihnachtsüberraschung 2017

  • Jan Lenica, Wozzeck, 1964

    Polish poster art in post-war Germany

    Polish poster art in the post-war period was regarded as the best of its kind in the world and and enjoyed a cult status in Germany.

  • V2 rocket on the launch pad at Peenemünde

    Peenemünde: Poles and Hitler’s secret weapon – the V2 rocket

    The V2 rocket, Hitler’s miracle weapon, was intended to decide the outcome of the Second World War. It was also thanks to Poles that Hitler’s missile centre was bombed.

  • Bolesław Szańkowski (1871/73-1953): Portrait of Józef Brandt, 1910.

    Józef Brandt

    With the opening of his Munich studio in 1875 Józef Brandt (1841-1915) became the leading figure in the Polish artists' colony in Munich.

  • Karol Broniatowski in the studio in Berlin 2016.

    Karol Broniatowski - Gouache paintings

    Karol Broniatowski’s gouache paintings: In search of the substance of the figurative.

  • Philips Galle (1537-1612): Joannes Alasco, 1567.

    Johannes a Lasco

    Born into a Polish magnate family in 1499, Jan Łaski, Latin name Johannes à Lasco, anglicised form John à Lasco, was predestined for a distinguished political and theological career. His uncle was the...