Lanscapes of Exile

Musing the question as to what, if any, the impact of mass deportation on that suddenly abandoned landscape.

This week's article, the last in the series on landscape, explores the question as to how the exile of people with connections to the land and its markers, impacts the landscape of that region.

I have been interested for quite some time in the question of the suffering of ethnic German immediately following Work-War II, and so, choosing that context to explore the aforementioned question came naturally.

Several hundred thousands ethnic Germans were, immediately following World-War II, driven across the borders of Germany and Austria. Less fortunate others ended up in concentration or labor camps. During this deportation, an estimated thirty thousand Germans died in the camps, in massacres and in forced marches.

I started musing the question as to what, if any, the impact of this exile is on that suddenly abandoned landscape? How does mass deportation of people with connections to the land and its markers, impact that landscape, I wondered.

In exploring these questions, I turned to one of the many women I have spoken with over the past years. Of German descent, she was one of the many who were expelled from their homes. Her home was in an area that was placed under Polish administration during the Yalta and Potsdam Conference. She had spent most of her childhood in that area and told me the story of her return there many years later. In it, she offers an explanation as to why the landscape of her childhood - at the time so tenderly cared for and looked after-- dilapidated so much after the mass deportations.

To read the article, click here