Travel Guide "Remembrance Connects Region Oder-Warta"

50 51 space of fate Sch i cksa l sa l sraum The Space of Fat e Th e space of fate (Schicksals- raum) covers the period of National Socialism, including the post-war period and reorganisation from 1933 to around 1947 in the Oder-Warthe region. Thematically, this category is divided into „injustice and caprice“, „resistance“ and „theatres of war“. In April of 1945 , one of the largest battles in Europe raged in the Seelow Heights area. As the prelude to the „Battle for Berlin“, it also represents one of the last major operations of the Second World War. To this day, numerous traces bear wit- ness to this event. After the end of the war, the Oder became a border river. Resettlements and expulsions were the result. War criminals were convicted, political opponents persecuted, hund- reds of thousands of war veterans and prisoners of war returned from the East, with stopovers in prisons, reception camps and in the Soviet People‘s Commissariat of Internal Affairs ( NKVD ) special camps in the region. Sites of National Socialism: injustice, caprice, and resistance The phase of the space of fate (Schicksalsraum) has left a lasting mark on the Oder-Warthe region. These events, especially at the end of the Second World War, led to an enormously high density of places of remembrance that is still visible today, which can be found in only a few regions throughout Europe. Places of remembrance and exhibitions at historical sites carry out important commemorative work on this era, with documentation, eyewitness accounts, and events. Sites of the Second World War The horrors of the war events, the landscape scars of the massive military structures (Oder-Warthe-Bogen/ Oder-Warthe arc) and operations, the remains of a flourishing armaments industry that profited from forced labour, and countless war graves and military cemeteries of different nations are documented in the following memo- rial sites. The post-war period and reorganisation The post-war period in the region was marked by forced migration and expul- sion of the ethnic German population from the area east of the Oder River, the repolonisation of the inhabitants of Polish origin, and the resettlement of Polish population groups in the area along the Oder and Warta rivers. Oderbruch and the border town of Frankfurt/Oder also acted as a bottle- neck for the repatriation of prisoners of war and forced labourers, and for the simultaneous arrival of a wave of German refugees, displaced persons, and „returnees“, whose care and accommodation posed great challen- ges for the region and its inhabitants. Frankfurt (Oder) Międzyrzecz Eisenhüttenstadt Fürstenwalde/ Spree Seelow Kostrzyn nad Odrą Zielona Góra Gorzów Wielkopolski Bad Freienwalde Berlin Słońsk Łagów Świebodzin Beeskow Sulęcin Odra Oder Warthe / Warta Odra / Oder Nysa Neiße Cottbus Forst Guben Müncheberg Strausberg Witnica 5 1 22 I 23 I 37 36 2 4 6 I 40 7 8 9 I 21 11 10 12 13 16 17 18 19 I 39 20 24 25 27 28 29 I 46 30 31 32 33 I 34 3 I 35 41 42 43 44 45 47 48 14 15 26 I 38 49 50 O D E R - W A R T A REMEMBRANCE C O N N E C T S