Museum or memorials in honor of the Expellees

Jo from Frankfurt, please correct me if I'm remembering this wrong...

I seem to recall at Hessenpark, an open-air folk museum north of Frankfurt, there's a exhibit that includes one of the cattle cars that were used to ship the Germans west out of soon-to-be-Poland-and-Russia. I recall at the time thinking how similar this seemed to the same method of transport the Nazis used to ship the Jews to concentration camps... and here's where my memory might be wrong. It may have actually been an exhibit on the Jewish experience, but I can't remember.

How about it Jo, am I right or wrong?

Hi,

Re: permanent museum or memorial in Germany? How about in Austria? There are several museums, ie, parts of several that deal with them. How many cities/towns in Germany are you willing to go to in order to visit them?

It all depends on what you are willing to see on this esoteric topic. Don't expect to see explanations given in English. They may have audioguides, but don't count on it. If you have a good reading knowledge of German, reading the artifacts, realia will be much more meaningful in understanding. Audiophones don't give you that. That's why I don't use them.

Oh yes, I can read and speak German quite well (writing it well is another matter), and am a student of modern German history. Unfortunately when I was last in Germany in my youth in the late 1980's I didn't do a good job of finding historical places and museums etc. Next time I hope to do better.

There are about 1400 memorials dedicated to German expellees in former West Germany. The oldest is in Immenhausen in Hessen. (1947). Since German reunion many memorials were also built in former DDR. In Austria there are quite a few, too. Most known are in Kreuzberg and Unter Retzbach. From Kreuzberg you can see Mikulov and Palava hills in the Czech Republic and from Unter Retzbach you can see Znojmo (also in C.R.).

As far as I know there isn't a permanent museum dedicated to them. The expellees had their own, private museums, but they weren't that good and many of them gave their exhibits to the state mueums. The Silesian state museum in Görlitz received many exhibits of the expellees from Silesia for example, and with the Pomeranian state museum in Greifswald it's probably the same. These museums also cover the expulsions.

If you are interested in this topic I highly recommend to read a few books and, with this new knowledge, visit these regions. Some of them are very attractive, like the spa triangle around Karlovy Vary or Cesky Krumlov, and some of them were more or less abandoned, like the mountainous parts of Silesia. It's also quite interesting how the new owners deal with the past.

@ rfbarta....No problem reading German? Wunderbar! If you're going to Austria, go to Linz. I've seen one of these memorials there dedicated to the expellees, these Heimatsvertriebenen. That was in Linz/Austria at the Nibelungen bridge, a plaque to their memory, which you can see as you walk across to get to the Innenstadt.

Now, if you want to see the museums in Germany where they are also featured, I can suggest a few first hand. Again, it depends upon which you're tracking down distance wise from each other.

In Münster/Westfalen there is the " Landesmuseum Westpreußen, " located in the Wolbeck district. In Rattigen (take the S-Bahn from Düsseldorf Hbf. Richtung: Essen) to the " Landesmuseum Oberschlesien"

In Lüneburg there is the main one, the biggie,..."Das Ostpreußisches Landesmuseum" on Ritterstraße, walk straight up from the train station to the Innenstadt, ca. 30 mins. The part of the museum covering this topic is: "Flucht und Vertreibung"

Thanks for replies everyone. Sometime I would like to visit these former German, or German speaking areas (in the case of the Sudetenland). I do recall visiting relatives of the family I stayed with in Germany who had resettled in the Cham area of Bavaria, so pretty near the former Sudetenland. I remember thinking how close it was to the Czech border (this was in 1982) and how exotic and exciting it was to be so near the Iron Curtain.

Didn't the Germans expel the Czechs from the Sudetenland in 1939 (?).

Yes, they did. But maybe those who expelled Czechs were not exactly those who were later expelled by Czechs with the blessing of victorious allies. If it was the case I would have no problem with that. Many innocent people suffer in wars, in this case even after war.

Didn't the Germans expel the Czechs from the Sudetenland in 1939 (?).

No, they didn't. In order to stay in the Sudetenland after the annexation the local Czechs had to acquire the German cizizenship. 60% of them did in 1938. The rest was compensated and resettled to Czechoslovakia. The compensation however was minimal. And after the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 expulsions didn't make sense anymore.

Look at the book, "Czechs and Germans" by Elizabeth Wiskemann.

In Weiden in der Oberpfalz near where I live is a small Museum dedicated to Sudeten Germans who lived in the area of Tachov in the Czech Republic that were expelled after the war (1945-1946). The Weiden region is where many of these German speaking Sudeten people ended up at the end of the war. Many are in their mid to late 90s and passing away. I have a friend who's Father still lives that was born in Tachov, served in the Wehrmacht in WWII, survived The Battle of Seelow being wounded, and the violence of the Czech expulsion of Sudeten Germans after the war. He eventually ended up working for the German Post in Weiden for 40 years.

http://www.weiden-tourismus.info/kultur-weiden-in-der-oberpfalz/museen/tachauer-heimatmuseum.html

http://www.tachau.de/