Keywords

Migrations are a complex phenomenon that has accompanied humanity since its dawn. As Klaus Bade notes, “they are just as much a part of the human condition as birth, reproduction, illness and death” (Bade 2003: ix). The environmental dimension of migration is, in turn, one of its most salient and immanent components. The increase in global migration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including those motivated by armed conflicts, also affected their scale and importance when it comes to the role of the natural environment. Whilst trying to understand the contemporary, environmental implications of migration caused by natural disasters or wars, it is worth looking at examples from the recent past, which can help us to better prepare for the challenges faced by host societies and migrants moving between different socio-natural systems (Izdebski 2018: 14–15). In doing so, we should not lose sight of the fact that these mass population movements consist of the experiences of individuals who perceive the changes taking place on a personal level, and we must remain mindful of similar issues that make up their migration experience.

In this article, I look at the migrations that took place after the Second World War due to the redrawing of political borders in Central Europe. I am particularly interested in the situation of Poland, which before World War II occupied areas of what is now western Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, and whose access to the sea was limited to the city of Gdynia and its environs, stretching north to the Hel peninsula near Gdańsk. Following the political decisions made at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, for example, it was decided to move the Polish geographical borders westwards and northwards. Thus, the country, having lost territories in the east, gained territories that had previously belonged to Germany, although its area was reduced by more than 70,000 square kilometres. However, this geopolitical decision of the Big Three resulted not only in shifting the borders on the map but also in a massive displacement of the population, who were forced to leave the towns and villages that they had inhabited, often for generations (Halicka 2020). This concerned both the Poles leaving the Polish eastern borderlands (“Kresy”) for central Poland and the so-called “Recovered Territories” and the Germans leaving the eastern territories in Germany. As a consequence of these migrations, as well as other movements of the Polish population from other parts of Europe, more than 2.2 million people migrated to new areas. As regards Germans leaving the eastern German territories that were incorporated into Poland after the war, the number of migrants totalled around 2.6 million people. The decision to redraw Poland’s borders also resulted in the country gaining a new climate zone in the Baltic region and new hardiness zones in the western parts of Poland, which was particularly significant from the point of view of plant cultivation practices (Praczyk 2018: 54).

On the other hand, when it comes to the condition of the ecosystem that was inhabited by the settlers, we must note two fundamental issues. The first concerns the demographic deficit, as the population that eventually settled the territory abandoned by the Germans was only half of the pre-war population. As a result of this disproportion, very interesting processes of uninhabited parts of villages (or entire villages) and parts of towns being reabsorbed by nature occurred in these areas. These territories witnessed a process of rationalisation, a decomposition of matter, and, in effect, post-anthropogenic landscapes emerged with exceptionally good conditions for the development of synanthropic species. In particular, these processes took place in the border area, due to post-war restrictions limiting settlement there. Consequently, the nature of the riverside areas around the Oder and Lusatian Neisse experienced a favourable transformation.

The second issue concerns the post-war destruction of the settlement area. War damage resulted not only in the destruction of towns and villages, the heritage of material culture, but also in a kind of ecocide. The military operations that were carried out at the end of the war led to the devastation of large swathes of forest, as well as significant areas of arable land. After the war, fallow land accounted for some 3.8 million hectares out of the 5.9 million hectares of agricultural land (Dziurzyński 1983: 183, Łach 1996: 12–16). During the hostilities, animals died en masse, not only mammals but also birds and fish. In turn, other species reproduced on an enormous scale, leading to the emergence of severe plagues, primarily of rodents and insects (Praczyk 2018: 276–283). Subsequently, the area inhabited by migrants, in those places where the fighting had taken place, had a post-apocalyptic quality.

The resettlement of populations, and often of animals migrating with humans, was a major logistical operation and required a series of political and administrative decisions that had environmental implications. In addition to official documents, reports and other source materials confirming the awareness of the environmental consequences of migration, primarily of the PUR (State Repatriation Office), the institution responsible for organising resettlement, I have also used diaries written by the resettled migrants to investigate their experiences.

I have examined more than a thousand memoirs, only some of which have been published (Praczyk 2018). The Polish memoirs about these events are unique on a global scale. The vast number of memoirs written after the war were the result of diary competitions organized by various institutions, encouraging people to send in their written experiences of the war and the post-war period. The idea for these competitions originated in the work of renowned Polish sociologists, dating back to the inter-war period, who tried to reach out to social groups, such as the peasantry, who had no opportunity to share their experiences in any other forum. The most important figure in this sociological milieu was Florian Znaniecki, who worked in the USA for many years (e.g. at the University of Chicago) and was a co-creator of the biographical method and the founder of Polish sociology (Każmierska 2015: 96). Some of the memoirs that allowed me to examine the significance of environmental issues in the experience of migration included those produced for the competition for memoirs of settlers in the “Recovered Territories”. A particularly valuable feature of this corpus of memoirs is the social cross-section, as the authors of the memoirs were both men and women, representatives of all contemporary generations, with very different social and economic status.

Thanks to the documents from the first group of sources, we can observe the decision-makers’ awareness of the importance of environmental conditions in the process of population resettlement. Selection of resettlement sites was to take into account the climate and soil so that the resettled areas resembled as closely as possible the migrants’ places of origin. In particular, the aim was to create good conditions for agricultural development and to make use of the environmental and farming skills that the resettlers had at their disposal. In July 1945, therefore, a resettlement plan was drawn up which made provision for the geographical and natural features. This plan was commissioned by the Office for Settlement Studies, which included the Scientific Council for the Recovered Territories, and this council included representatives of the natural sciences, earth sciences and geographical sciences (IV Sesja Rady Naukowej dla Zagadnień Ziem Odzyskanych 1948). According to this plan, the settlement would be carried out in latitudinal zones, and in accordance with the soil and climatic ranges of the sites of origin and settlement. Despite the existing recommendations, difficulties in carrying out the settlement, due to both transport restrictions and traveller activity, for the most part prevented this plan from materialising. The routes of migration, especially in areas destroyed by warfare, were very chaotic. Consequently, the settlers, arriving at an appointed place, often started to journey further on their own to find a suitable settlement. Interestingly, during the meetings of the Scientific Council for the Recovered Territories, attention was paid not only to objective aspects, such as familiarity with the type of farmland, but also to subjective factors. The emotional ties between the population that was forced to migrate and nature were emphasised. It was also noted that in view of the poverty and often very modest living conditions of the peasants in the eastern areas of the Second Polish Republic, their attachment to the land and the natural surroundings resembled emotional attachment to the most precious objects. This was also an effect of identifying life with working the land. For the migrating peasants, the land (soil) was a crucial factor in forging their identity and their sense of belonging to the place they were forced to leave. The natural environment was thus an important identity-forming factor equivalent to, for example, the question of nationality, ethnicity or language community.

Another important factor influencing the shape of local ecosystems was the migration of animals, particularly of horses and cows. These animals were transported to areas previously affected by warfare, and thus also to the Recovered Territories as part of international aid (UNRRA), were purchased by the Polish government or brought with the settlers. The first group, for example, included about 100,000 horses and 16,000 cows mainly from the USA (Łaptos 2018: 197–2013). The animals which were purchased, numbering tens of thousands and coming from Iceland, the Netherlands and Sweden, were used to working in completely different environmental conditions and to living in completely different agroecosystems (Archiwum Akt Nowych, MZO 1444). In addition, about 300,000 animals accompanied the migrants, most of which were terribly exhausted by the journey and traumatised by the experiences of war and the conditions to which they were not accustomed. In addition, there were horses demobilised from the army, which were also distributed among the new hosts. Therefore, the settled areas were marked not only by the cultural diversity of the migrating people but also by the great variety of animals forced to adapt to new natural settings (Praczyk 2018, 189–191).

However, it was not until I looked into the migrants’ memoirs that the complexity and importance of the environmental aspect of migration became apparent. The prevalence of memories relating to both pragmatic and emotional environmental conditions far exceeded my initial assumptions. Migration was beyond any doubt an important environmental challenge for the migrants, occupying a central place in their memories. In their recollections, they highlighted a number of elements that comprise the environmental dimension of migration. The most important of these were.

  • the grief and fear of severing the emotional bond with the natural environment that they had lost;

  • the natural environment perceived as a source of trauma, which emerged from observing the inhabited nature that had been damaged by war;

  • the problem of domesticating the new natural space associated with the emotional sense of alienation, strengthened by the memory of being uprooted from their original area;

  • ascribing new functions to the environment they were encountering;

  • the mutual adjustment of various elements of the natural environment, including the people who inhabited it.

These processes are compounded by two important issues: generational differences, which influenced the perception of these problems; and gender differences, which, as my research has shown, did not play a fundamental role.

The first of these issues has to do with the breakdown of emotional ties with the natural environment caused by forced displacement. Therefore, the despair described by both male and female diarists was not only linked to the loss of their homes (as is usually pointed out) but precisely to the feeling of loss of the entire natural environment. The connection to this environment proved to be of vital importance, and the breaking of this link, traumatic. This applies both to relationships within whole ecosystems and to individual elements of nature, including animals with which people formed emotional bonds; this did not apply only to cats and dogs, but also to cows, horses and other animals which lived on farms with people and sometimes shared their homes with them. Sometimes in country houses, one of the rooms was reserved for livestock.

Memories of the abandoned environment featured descriptions of a whole range of sensory experiences that were not to be found in the new places. Thus, the migrants wrote about the unique smells of plants, the tastes of fruit and tactile impressions, especially in terms of the fertility of the land or the unforgettable microclimate of the lost forests, marshes and lakes. Recalling the soundscape of the places they had abandoned, attention was drawn to the singing of many species of birds, the sounds of insects and the murmur of forests, streams or rivers. These descriptions were in stark contrast to the emptiness and ominous silence of the memories of the areas being settled. One of the strategies for coping with being uprooted from one’s former home was to bring at least a symbolic part of the environment along on the journey, such as tree or bush seedlings (mainly fruit trees) and clumps of earth, which were to become a symbolic souvenir in the new place. The same was done with twigs or other dried remains of plants that were important to people. One of the diarists recalled the day of departure as follows: “my father took out of his pocket a handkerchief as white as snow, into which he put a few lumps of earth. He did this with solemnity and great reverence. Tears as big as peas started to fall from his eyes. He did not even try to wipe them off.” (Ośrodek “Karta”: W.16) Some people wrote about bidding farewell to every tree, every corner of the garden.

Animals also played a very important role. It was sometimes possible to take a certain number of livestock, but only a few, which often meant abandoning the remaining droves of animals. As a rule (although there were exceptions), the opportunity to take animals on the road did not extend to dogs and cats. The memories of migrants are thus filled with heartrending descriptions of abandoned pets. It is worth recalling at least one such memory, written down by Helena Dragan: “A villager with his wife and a small child in nappies … managed to reach the station. And when the train was about to leave, the villager approached the wagon, where a couple of pretty horses were standing, cried, and kissed the horses as if they were human faces. They both cried and, having left the horses, set off on their journey with their bags” (Instytut Zachodni: P216). The friendly relationships with animals, which the quotation illustrates, points to the subjectivity of the abandoned animals, even if the bonds formed between people and animals were of a professional sort. This fact was already described by Eric Baratay, who wrote that the roles in which animals are usually inscribed in historiography, portrayed only in a utilitarian and subordinate function to humans, do not reflect the multidimensional relationships that were established between them and humans. The pragmatic rationale behind the presence of animals in people’s lives did not cancel out the deep, emotional attachments that often developed in parallel (Baratay 2014: 53). Describing animals only in terms of things or when referring to human cruelty belittles and limits the image of human–non-human relationships, in aristocratic as well as peasant society. Moreover, powerful emotions are shown both by women and men. The stereotypically attributed higher emotionality of women towards nature was not confirmed in the diaries I have analysed.

The moment when the migrants left their homes and natural environment, however, was only the beginning of their migration experience. Gradually, first on the road and then in the process of settling new areas, further facets of environmental influence became evident. Noticing the differences between the abandoned and the new landscapes, vegetation types, landforms and air quality, and the presence of (very limited) animals, the settlers realised how important the nature they had lost was for them. The trauma of settling devastated territories was only partly related to life among the ruins. An equally important component of it was the witnessing of destroyed nature. When people came to the area of the Recovered Territories where warfare had taken place, they were confronted with military equipment, unexploded ordnance and carcasses strewn about the forests and fields. In places that the Germans had already left, forced as they had been by the Poles to leave their animals behind, feral dogs and cats wandered about, as did hungry cows and horses. Sometimes, in farms hurriedly vacated by Germans, settlers would come across the dead bodies of horses and cows tied up or locked inside barns, or dead or starving dogs chained up. For example, one can find such a trail of these traumatic images in the settlers’ memories: “In a neighbour’s yard across the road there was a cow lying half eaten by dogs. When I walked closer, a large dog jumped out from inside the cow…. Elsewhere, behind the barn, a cow lay calving and dead.” (Instytut Zachodni: P145) As another settler remembered, “not far from the main road we entered an estate, or rather livestock buildings. We found over a hundred skeletons of cattle and horses tied to mangers.” (OBN: R-822) These and many other similar descriptions dominate reminiscences of the arrival in the Recovered Territories. Interestingly, although the initial period of organising the natural environment usually spanned a relatively short period of time, from a few years to a maximum of a dozen years after settlement, in the settlers’ accounts it is envisioned as a different epoch, a liminal situation, a moment of transition between the earlier and the later lives.

In this period, apart from the post-apocalyptic scenes cited above, the overriding emotions are anxiety, fear and disgust. Thus, we can read in the diaries about recurring forest fires caused by abandoned ammunition, about animals and people ripped apart by mines, about recurring infestations of rats and mice, which were very troublesome and revolting for several years: “My parents started cultivating gardens, ploughing and sowing fields. But their efforts were largely in vain. And it was all because of … mice. Because of the uncollected grain from the fields during the last year of the war, the unthreshed wheat stacks, the absence of people and predatory animals such as cats, these rodents multiplied on a scale unprecedented in our latitude” (Ośrodek “Karta”: 208). There are even reports in memoirs of rodents eating fruit from trees (Instytut Zachodni: P125). The instability of the post-war ecosystem also haunted migrants in the form of floods and droughts, and fears of epidemics caused by the decaying organic matter of human and animal remains in the areas which they had settled.

Such a picture of the environment into which the settlers had encroached was countered by further contrasting memories of abandoned habitats. In this case, however, they were much more acute for the older generation, as in Zygmunt Sobolewski’s recollection: “My father is not particularly enthusiastic about the land. According to him, it dries out too quickly, it is not rich enough. It’s a far cry from the soil he left behind, and he’s upset that it probably needs a lot of manure. And finally, he says that maybe it is not the worst, but it is not as good as our black soil” (Ośrodek “Karta”: AWII/2242/P).

Among younger migrants, besides longing and resentment, there were also descriptions of enthusiasm for work, seeing good opportunities for living in the new place, and sometimes even contentment after leaving behind oppressive living conditions. Satisfaction was also expressed in the recollections of poor peasants, who, if they had settled on only slightly damaged farms, treated the situation as a step up in social hierarchy. They made use of the abandoned farming tools and the locally preserved agricultural infrastructure to improve their quality of life. Sometimes they were also delighted with the new landscape and plant species they had not come across before (e.g. magnolias).

Usually, however, taming the settled space was an arduous process that required sacrifice, and was tainted by a sense of alienation, as in Jan Szozda’s memoir: “In the first days of settling in Duchowo it was sad, then slowly we got used to new farmyards, a different land, a different climate …. And so gradually everyone got absorbed in the daily work” (PIN-Instytut Śląski: A3156, Wol. 67O). Sometimes, however, this led to a gradual identification with the new environment, which was treated exceptionally subjectively, as in the memoirs of Józef Pacholak, who wrote that “such roaming in the fields and forests of Kwidzyn lasted two years. I learned about the area by collecting herbs and mushrooms. I developed strong bonds of friendship with the nature of the Recovered Territories” (Instytut Zachodni: P172). Such a culmination of settling and transforming the new ecosystems through one’s own work can also be found in memories written years later, in retrospect. At this point I would like to quote one more recollection which captures this well: “Looking at the landscape around me—I compared it in my mind with the landscape of my homeland. And I must admit that I was yearning for the land where I had grown up. How different the local area was from my native land. Today, years later, I must say I did not come to like this land so quickly or get used to it so quickly. The work I put in, the effort and its fruits made me love this land, where one could say I left my sweat, and recognised it as my home” (Książnica Pomorska: 1970).

The examples of the migration of Poles after World War II that I have analysed demonstrate which factors should be considered when assessing the environmental effects of population movements in similar situations. On the one hand, objective factors are important, such as analysis of the degree of destruction, the demographics of the settled/resettled areas, an analysis of risks connected with infestations of various animal species (caused by the disruption of the ecosystem after a temporary or long-lasting disappearance of the population in cultivated areas, or by the devastation or excessive mortality of plant and animal species that had led to the disturbance of ecosystems and their biodiversity) and the possible contamination of part of the environment. On the other hand, one should also factor in aspects which are less frequently discussed, especially those related to the personal perception of nature and the space of the migrants, which influence the way they used the settled environment, as well as their well-being in the new place.

This case study also teaches us that unanticipated population movements and human behaviour that contribute to reshaping existing ecosystems must be accounted for. In effect, as the post-war Polish migrations show, local ecosystems are altered not only by hostilities but also by the entry of new settlers and political decisions (e.g. on the level of settlement of the areas, or new administrative divisions or functions). Due to the large number of farmers settling the Recovered Territories, for example, the character of many smaller towns changed, and they began to perform de facto functions typical of rural centres.

The secondary ecological succession that occurred in these areas as a result of the war led to a new quality of local ecosystems, which were different both from the pre-existing German ecosystems in the region and from those that the settlers had been forced to abandon. However, their habits and skills, as well as the varying levels of devastation of the local ecosystems and the new political circumstances, contributed to the formation of new socio-natural systems, which consisted both of lands reclaimed by nature and those areas of the war-devastated environment that were transformed and re-ordered by the migrants. Therefore, it is not appropriate to speak of an encroachment into a pre-existing “German” ecosystem but of a rupture and discontinuation brought about by a disaster (in this case, war) and a gradual restoration, already a new ecological balance, from which entirely new natural wholes emerged.

The settlers’ memories of the environment shows the immense effort required to shape the new natural reality and, most importantly, the fundamental role played by nature that needed to be ordered and tamed. It demonstrates what an enormous challenge it is to restore or, in this case, shape the ecological balance. The settlers’ memoirs also reveal that the transition from thinking of a new natural environment as foreign to a point where it becomes personal and “one’s own” is usually a long and often psychologically painful process, comprising the experience of migration as much as other factors such as cultural or political adaptation. Ignoring this aspect of the migration experience can have disastrous consequences, not only for the migrating individuals but also for the new ecosystems created by mass human migration.