A project concerning regional jewish history of Lower Silesia after World War II and following the traces of this history, the individual and collective memory – druing the project, an exhibition will arise.

After World War II, many jewish survivors of the holocaust were settled in those parts of Lower Silesia, that had belonged to Germany until 1945. Next to Breslau/ Wrocław, a strong settlement of jewish population - who established their own cooperative structures - was also build in Reichenbach / Dzierżoniów. There were people that wanted to create a jewish settlement, a Yishuv, in Poland – others rather saw their stay as a stopover to prepare their exile. Due to the Pogrom of Kielce in 1946 the second group started to outweigh the first one clearly.

With this project we want to get a picture of how the german inhabitants that stayed and the new jewish and non-jewish inhabitants (mostly polish settlers from the eastern territories) of Reichenbach lived together. In addition, we are keen to find out what this chapter signifies for jews who emigrated later, former german inhabitants and those from 1949/50 clearly dominating polish inhabitants of Reichenbach today.

A central part of the project was an international meeting for students from Izrael, Poland and Germany in Kreisau between april 23rd and may 3rd 2010 . During this seminary, contemporary witnesses were questioned and other material was gathered to be put together to an exhibition until October 2010.

The project is part of the programme Geschichtswerkstatt (history workshop) of the Foundation „Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”(EVZ), it is realized by the Kreisau Foundation, the Beiteinu Chaj Foundation and the Kreisau Initiative Berlin and supported by the German-Polish Youth Office and the Willy Brandt Centre (Wrocław).