Klaipėdos universitetas

The article analyses the everyday life of civilians in East Prussia during the Second World War, with a special focus on the Klaipėda (Memel) region, a former territory of Lithuania, which was annexed by the German Reich in March 1939. Since the Wehrmacht recruited a large number of men in 1941 in the former Memel region, a great shortage of labour also arose in this northern part of East Prussia. At the same time, numerous labour camps were set up in the region, for both foreign and forced labourers, and prisoners of war. Foreign workers were employed in most agricultural enterprises, which were run by women, thus creating many sources of tension. The women were dependent on close cooperation with the workers, but had to keep a safe distance and report to the Nazi authorities, as well as to their men who were on the front line. The paper focuses on the situation of women who lived and worked in familiar surroundings during the war, but whose lives were nevertheless greatly influenced by the war.

Historians have already shown how the Jewish minority contributed to the rebirth of the Lithuanian state in 1918. The beginning of the experiment to integrate the Jewish minority into the reemergent Lithuanian state, however, has often been told from the perspective of failure only. The article challenges this view, by describing how Zionism, the Jewish national movement, supported the emergence of the Lithuanian state. The author analyses how the Jews supported the newly created Lithuanian government by voting to send representatives to it, and by producing a document that improved the international position of the Lithuanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, and which was helpful for the international recognition of the young state.

On the turn of the 19th c., the composition of the students in Königsberg University changed. After the 3rd Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1795), the number of Polish students in it went up, however, after the foundation of the Duchy of Warsaw, it immediately dropped again. The Polish students who had studied abroad grew up into famous figures of culture and science. They promoted the development of cultural and scientific centres and of their network in Europe.

Jewish immigration, which increased in East Prussia particularly after the Crimean War (1853-1856) because of an immigration policy that had been liberal for decades, brought especially young Litvak families to the region. They came with the decided endeavour to leave a part of their Litvak traditions behind and to establish themselves in Prussia. Which Jewish identity did they pass on to their children, who grew up as citizens of the Reich? And how did the identity of the grandchildren’s’ generation unfold? That very prominent change of identity is shown on the basis of one family that proves to be exemplary for Jews who immigrated in the second half of the 19th century. Several generations can be defined. The generation of the immigrants had children who explicitly felt German. The life of the grandchildren was connected to the decision for forced migration and thus with commitment to a new chosen homeland (in most cases, Palestine), in which the mental relationships to their home region were shaped in a very ambivalent way.