The Wrocław Centre for Social Development (WCRS) and the Wrocław branch of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) invite you to a talk by Kamilla Jasińska on the deportation of the civilian population of Warsaw during the 1944 Uprising to Breslau. The presentation will be held twice: on 30 July and 6 August at 13.00 at the Passage of Dialogue (Przejście Dialogu).
About the topic
Among the tens of thousands of Polish forced labourers who worked in Breslau for the Third Reich’s war economy during the Second World War were thousands of civilians from Warsaw. They began arriving in German Breslau in the very first days of the Warsaw Uprising, but most of the transports came in the first days of October 1944. For a large group of Varsovians, Breslau – and above all the Burgweide transit camp on the outskirts of the city – was just a brief stop on the way deeper into the Third Reich. Many, however, were assigned to work in Breslau itself. They were held in dozens of German labour camps, including several set up specifically for them. A large group of civilians from insurgent Warsaw – several thousand at least – lived through the tragic fighting for Festung Breslau. Those who survived this “hell on earth”, as they themselves called it, faced a difficult choice: to return to their beloved but razed Warsaw, or to stay in Polish Wrocław – also in ruins, but above all a completely alien city, German until then…
Kamilla Jasińska will present the dramatic stories of thousands of Varsovians who ended up in labour camps in Breslau after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising. She will talk about their daily lives, their struggle for survival and the difficult choices they faced after the war.
The lecture will be accompanied by unique archival material: drawings and photographs from the collection of the Society of Friends of Wrocław – the Club of People with the “P” Mark (Towarzystwo Miłośników Wrocławia – Klub Ludzi ze Znakiem P).
Event details
When? 30 July and 6 August | 13:00-15:00
Where? Passage of Dialogue, Świdnicka 19 (Świdnicka underpass)
Free admission
Speaker
Kamilla Jasińska – a researcher and popular historian of Wrocław (Breslau), who works professionally at the Wrocław branch of the Institute of National Remembrance and is also an active member of the Society of Friends of Wrocław. Her research and educational interests include forced labour in Breslau, the history of places of remembrance, dark tourism, urban toponymy, and both well-known and lesser-known figures who made their mark on Wrocław. She is the author of several books, more than a dozen exhibitions, dozens of radio programmes and hundreds of popular history articles.
Don’t miss this chance to discover a little-known but important chapter in Wrocław’s history!
