Communism, Nationalism, and Identity in a Polish-German Borderland, 1945-1950

This dissertation examines the role of expulsions and repatriations in forging a new political and social reality in post-World War II Polish-German borderlands. In particular, it focuses on the Polish communist regime's Polonization campaign in Lower Silesia, a borderland transferred to Poland from Germany in 1945. Polish communists, armed with the consent of the international community, initiated sweeping ethnic rearrangements that culminated in the uprooting and reinvention of people and territory. Indeed, Polonization and the ethnic homogenization of traditionally multicultural borderlands occupied a central position in the prevailing communist discourse of postwar reconstruction. Moreover, my work sheds light on the social and political history of ethnic consolidation, population movements, and the transnational implications of redrawing borders and communities in post-1945 East Central Europe. It also addresses pivotal questions for the understanding of postwar Europe: How do displaced people forge new communities and start new lives after the wreckage of war and genocide? Which memories and traditions are the most appropriate for constructing a new society in unfamiliar lands? And how did Polish and Jewish migrants as well as the indigenous population negotiate their visions of new homes with political leaders and authorities? Throughout the dissertation, I illuminate the impact of displacement and ethnic cleansing on the creation of a new national order set against the backdrop of a social and political revolution in communist Poland. In the end, this study contributes to larger debates about ethnic cleansing and to the ongoing discussions about the role of Poles, Jews, Germans, and Soviets in the postwar construction of an ethnically homogenous Polish nation-state.