Uncovering two nearly forgotten stories

In my next book about remembrance cultures, I also want to include my search for my own family history. Recently, I dealt with two stories that have never been talked about and were nearly lost in my family: an expulsion and an “euthanasia”. Both of them, I found in present-day Poland.

A part of my family was from Gleißen, formerly located in the Neumark region of East Brandenburg. After the Second World War, the people had to leave, the town came to Poland and is called Glisno today. However, I wanted to know more details.

Therefore, I recently interviewed a woman from former Gleißen who lives near Hanover. She told me more about how unexpectedly fast the Eastern Front reached the town in early 1945, what happened to the inhabitants when the Soviet troops entered and how she felt when the town came under Polish administration. When the Gleißeners were informed about the new border, they were given two hours to quickly pack their belongings on their handcarts before the trek gathered and was forcibly expelled.

Some days ago, I visited Glisno – surrounded by forests, lakes and rapeseed fields – and found the former house of my family. I was very happy to meet the people who are living in it today, as well as other locals who were able to translate. All of them told me more about how it is to live in Glisno today, and I learned about how it was for the Polish people who settled here.

Since Poland was shifted westwards after the war, the people from its lost territories (present-day Ukraine) were moved to the gained lands (former Germany). Thus, the Polish were also forcibly expelled, they lost their homeland and shared a very similar fate as the Germans who moved westwards.

The other story, I came across for the first time seven years ago: My great-great-grandmother was killed in a psychiatry in 1943, probably through a medicament injection. During the euthanasia program, the National Socialist regime systematically killed people with disabilities and psychological illnesses, the so-called “life unworthy of life”.

I visited the psychiatry of Meseritz-Obrawalde (today Międzyrzecz-Obrzyce) where more than 10,000 people were murdered, mainly Germans from cities like Berlin or Hamburg. The Polish historian Katarzyna Sztuba-Frąckowiak guided me around and told me more about forced labour and how the patients got soup without fat, so they would die within three months if they hadn’t been killed by medicaments before.

Meseritz and Gleißen, Międzyrzecz and Glisno – two places only 25 kilometres apart from each other. These two stories have always existed, but never in my life before. Only now I am really aware of them.

I realised that you can lose your home within two hours, and how important it is to value human life regardless of whether a person might behave differently or needs psychological help.

Thanks for the hospitality and helpfulness of all the Polish people I met.