“These are fragments of our experiences of this cruel war… Starving and freezing, constantly fearing for our lives.”: A bottom-up history of the forced displacements of Polish civilians from lands annexed directly into the German Reich, 1939-1941

This MRP fills a gap in the historiography on the forced displacements of Polish civilians by the Nazi German administration between 1939-1941 from lands annexed directly into the German Reich onto the Generalgouvernement. Drawing on a set of forty-four primary sources consisting of written memoirs and video interviews, this MRP constructs a bottom-up history of the evictions, temporary transit camps, and train journeys that the forcibly displaced Poles were forced to endure. Contrasting previous works, this MRP describes how different groups of people reacted – varying in age, urbanicity, location, and profession, in particular also looking at the perspective of children. It extends the description to the pre-war lives and to the beginnings of the German Occupation of Poland through the eyes of the forcibly displaced Poles, creating partial microhistories, as well as considering the new identities of the forcibly displaced as exiles – wygnańce. It gives a voice to the primary source, while continually examining them against Polish-language and English-language secondary sources on the topic.