1We will not focus in detail on the question of whether or not collective identities exist, what they are and above all, how they would be created, how cultural identification processes should be imagined. I think we can agree that the emotional stability of the household relies on the circumstance that change can only be tolerated or executed when the social and substantial surroundings are stable for prolonged periods of time. Rapid and violent changes, for example, the earthquake in Lisbon on November 1^st, 1755, led to a total disorientation, to a fundamental doubt of the inherent concept of the world. During mass migrations in the old world, apart from the bare essentials, people took with them their house gods, which the Romans called Laren. These gods symbolically guaranteed stability within change.

2My presentation deals with household gods of a special kind. I will introduce folk dolls to you (fig. 1), which some of the German re-settlers of the former German “Pomerania” took with them on their resettlement in the western parts of Germany in 1945. This alone is not very extraordinary, but for the fact that the Polish people, who were resettled in Pomerania at the same time, produced similar folk dolls (fig. 2) and a national costume, which they claimed to be their old tradition, their household gods.

Weizacker clothing and dolls

3At the end of the 18^th century a very specific regional costume (fig. 3) had established in the so-called “Weizacker,” a region 40 km southeast of Stettin. At this time the area belonged to Prussia. After the Viennese Congress in 1815, Poland was divided between three powers: Prussia, Austria and Russia. Pomerania is situated in the North of the Prussian province. A fertile soil, a stable employment situation, prosperous industry, trade and farming led to a wealthy agricultural class. The wealth of the farmers is reflected in ornamented furniture and colourful folk dress with local diversification.

Traditional clothing’s disappearance

4Women and men wore the so-called Weizacker national costume till the turn of the 19^th century. Prospering industries and increased mobility of farming communities at the beginning of the 20^th century resulted in more and more people laying down their traditional costumes. By the turn of the century, most people had adapted to urban clothing, starting with the male population.

5In 1868, empirical statistics showed that “men as well as women—although mainly the latter—would cling to the old tradition in their clothing behaviour.”2 One generation later—in 1910, this situation had obviously dramatically changed. Robert Holsten, a regional historian, noted with concern, that in most villages only few old women, rarely seen in public, wore the Weizacker regional costume and very often the clothing was worn only by one single individual” (fig. 4).3 Holsten noted that their regional costume had disappeared in most villages and that only the memory of its existence had survived. Also, his survey showed that the national clothing was not worn in its traditional purity. Often modern elements were mixed in with the traditional costume and in this way special character was added to the regional clothes, although the Pomeranians did not feel that their national costume was adulterated with the new material, an example of the affects of change. Torsten Gebhard is quite accurate in the notion that national costumes had always been subjected to change and that this rate of change had accelerated. Until the middle of the 18^th century these changes had taken place over longer periods of time, but in the following periods these phases had become shorter.4

6In order to prevent the traditional costume’s disappearance in everyday life, people who were conscious of tradition made sure that it was present at special occasions—for example when the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II, inaugurated the renovated Lady Dome in Stargard in the year 1911. Here we also detect that the national costume’s function had changed, it now served as a fancy dress for women, men and children from the Weizacker region.5 The Polish Historian Iwona Karwowska writes:

“The final stage of its use (i.e. the use of the national costume) was in between the wars, when it moved on from the category of clothing for working days and holidays of a special regional group to the category of a fancy dress which was specifically and deliberately worn on particular occasions, to demonstrate the ties to a specific region and its culture. In this case the national costume became a proof of worth for a given group, and as C. Robotycki remarked, a mystification of the traditional costume follows, but this does not necessarily mean that the costume is worn because of it.”6

7Karwowska points out that the national costume serves as a regional orientation aid showing insiders and outsiders that the people who wore it belonged to the Weizacker region.7 In his survey of the Weizacker photos, Ulrich Hägele points out that the more the national dress vanished in people’s everyday life, the more it became present as “a symbol of endangered, but idealized lifestyle.”8 This statement can be supported by the appearance of three-dimensional objects, the folk dolls. Parallel to the traditional clothing’s disappearance national dolls were exhibited in the parlour and in the living-rooms.

Weizacker folk dolls

8The cloth for the dolls clothing came from national costumes, which the people did not wear any longer.9 The folk dolls turned into an emotional symbol, steeped with meaning, like the proof of ancestry or an apostolic succession one can speak of a material succession. Textiles, which are closer to one’s own body than any other object, become mementos that store biographical traces and experiences of people. By reworking the traditional textile as doll’s dresses these memories are preserved in a three-dimensional manner. The doll’s body serves as a representation of the human body. The national dolls are reflections—simulacra—of the once worn traditional costumes and therefore of the person, who had worn them. This assisted the elderly women, in their transition in a fast changing world.

9Fortunately, slides from 1930, which must have accompanied a lecture, have survived to this day. We can see that it was mostly women who looked after the preservation of the traditions (fig. 5).10 Women and girls dressed in national costumes are standing next to a glass cabinet displaying national dolls, pointing to them. They hold a doll on their lap or in their arms. On the coloured slides, which are probably staged for documentation purposes, we see only women. As a rule the dolls are dressed as women. Dolls in male costumes are rare. The slides document the increasing disappearance of the regional costumes. Because it was no longer a matter of course to wear the regional costume in everyday life, the national costume and people of the day were recorded in photographs. The photographs are also documentary evidence. They prove that people of this particular region once wore this national costume and that the dolls dresses are not just a product of fantasy. Here the doll both serve as a memory token and a stepping stone in the modern world.11

10Miniature private displays were assembled as showcases in a private room, which was called the “birthday room,” showing that it was only used for special events. This emphasized the status the national doll now had achieved in the life of the Pomeranians (Weizacker). The private rooms resembled a sacristy. The national dolls, being heightened to a status of ‘relics,’ replaced the use of liturgical clothing and ornaments.

11Museums preserve and investigate objects so as to shed light on the past in the present time, and to provide us with a reference for the future. These national dolls which are still exhibited in private rooms, remind us of the vanishing tradition and the rural, pre-industrial past.

National dolls after 1945 in Germany and Poland

12Poland and Germany belong to the European Nations which, after the end of the Second World War (1945), had large parts of the population resettled, often with force. After the First World War the Greater German Reich lost its provinces Posen, West Prussia, parts of Pomeranian and Silesia to the Polish State. Despite these losses the Reich reached far into the west region of today’s Poland. Breslau and Stettin were German cities; East Prussia was cut offand isolated from the Greater German Reich. After 120 years of separation Poland received the status of an independent state. It gained areas in the east of what is today Belarus and Ukraine. The Poland of the interwar years was a multi-racial state.

13After the Second World War (1945) this situation changed. The Polish State was moved to the west. It now governed the former German regions in the east of the Oder-Neiße-Line, Pomeranian, Silesia, and Posen. So, nearly all Germans who had lived in this region had to move to the western parts of the Reich. At the same time the regions in the east of Poland were awarded to Russia, as arranged in the Hitler-Stalin-Pact. Approximately 3 million Lithuanian, Belarusian and Galician Poles and Ukrainians were resettled to the west of Poland, in the former German regions. The faith of these people was similar to the faith of the German expellees.

German expellees

14Firstly, I will talk about the German expellees and then, I will spend time on the national costume in the new Polish regions after 1945.

15When the German expellees arrived in the German Reich (or to be more precise in one of the 4 occupation zones), they were confronted with the problem of having to get used to their new environment and to an unknown culture. The negative attitude of the old-established German population made it more difficult for them to assimilate. Very soon the expellees established regional unions, the so-called associations of displaced persons. Among other aims they wanted to remember and to cultivate their native traditions. At regular gatherings they met and still meet former neighbours, friends and relatives in order to preserve the collective memory of their former homeland. (I will not talk about their political demands and the associated problematic nature.)

16National dolls played a growing role in these meetings. Single women initially made the dolls, following that they were made by regional departments of the Pomeranian associations. These dolls, created far away from their native country Pomerania, symbolised the lost homeland and became a national symbol of a pre-industrial past.12

17The women continued the textile succession by keeping the tradition of national dolls, now using different materials. Because of the lack of traditional cloth and pattern charts, the production of dolls dresses for the later manufactured life-sized reconstructions of the national costume no longer depended on these. This achievement of the national costume and accessories, carefully carried out, came to the fore. Members of the associations of displaced persons did not regard the use of modern cloth or changes in the cut as distortion. Based on the handed-down national costumes, the women had worked out elementary basic patterns, and in doing so they created forms which were regarded as generally accepted. These basic forms created the framework for the revitalization of the traditional costume that has adapted to our time with materials, colours and style.13 The question whether the “new” regional costume was genuine did not occur because the symbolic system was not disturbed. Again, the changes that took place were not as crucial as the things that remained the same.

18Whereas the manufactured national dolls served as a historic and spatial marking point at the turn of the century, the historicized and folkloristic protection of the Weizacker folk costume now served as a sign system recalling the past in an often outlandish experienced environment. This system recalls the past and in doing so presents the constant within change.14 Just like their ancestors in 1900 today’s expellees hold on to their household gods which seem to guarantee that the losses of the past can be endured. They stand for familiarity in the foreign environment.

19What we have described so far was only one link of the Weizacker dolls. The second link leads us back to Pomerania, to today’s Poland.

Polish expellees

20As previously mentioned, after 1945, Polish people of different regional origins populated the former area of the Weizacker. This population mix led the Polish government to conduct research programmes that addressed effects of the population mix and how the ethnic-socio-cultural relationships could develop in this area.15

21The Weizacker costume met the needs for familiarity. The Polish Ethnologist Bozena Stelmachowska described the outer appearance of the Weizacker costume as ugly and typically German, but she loved the stitching. She regarded the floral ornament as a hint for a Slavic origin of the handicraft. The Polish society for folklore, which dealt with Polish national costumes in 56 monographs, mapped the Weizacker costume in 1955. They followed Stelmachowska’s opinion that the stitching was a “clear connection to the Slavic national costumes.”16 This was especially valid for the “shoulder scarf that was stitched with large flowers” and for the ornamentation on aprons, stockings and handbags.17

22The Ethnologist Agnieszka Dobrowolska also tried to find an accurate connection between the Weizacker costume and the Slavic culture. It is due to her imbedding of the national costume in a Slavic context—which definitely bears ontological features—that Polish expellees believed that the Weizacker costume had originally been a Polish national costume. The appearance of the Weizacker costume in school atlas, poster and on stitching samples supported this statement politically. Schoolgirls were taught to provide dolls with the Weizacker costume. Today, one of these dolls is kept in the museum of local history in Stettin.

23This process shows that both, the Polish government and the Polish expellees were keen to set up a basis for a common Polish system of symbols in order to create a regional identity. The people who were resettled to this region from different Polish areas should be able to find a common cultural foundation through the national costume and the national doll. By wearing the national costume, they should develop a feeling of belonging to a greater national order. Regarding the basic elements, cut, material and colour, there is no difference between the reconstructed Polish national costumes and the German Weizacker and doll costumes. In Poland the new national costumes also adapted to the conditions of today’s Poland.

24Unlike the German folk dolls, Polish folk dolls have not gained the same status of household gods. They are hardly mentioned in Polish literature. During my research work I had the chance to visit some Polish households. I visited one of the few women in Poland who are able to stitch the difficult patterns. The woman I met worked for both, Polish and German expellees. In her living room she exhibits no dolls but stitched textiles, among them a Polish pennant from 1985, which indicates the 6^th folk meeting of the Polish expellees in Pyritz.

25One possible reason for the minor importance of dolls in Poland could be that the Polish expellees had recreated their version of the folk costume in the middle of the 20^th century. They did not experience its decline around 1900 nor did they make numerous efforts to preserve the costume. While the Germans stuck to their material succession sequence and therewith to the visual continuity of the old tradition, the Poles created a common regional costume after their forced resettlement. So, in Poland the regional costume is quite new. Today it serves as a fancy dress in both countries. People do not wear the traditional clothing in everyday life, because it is too uncomfortable. They only wear it on special events.

*

26But both, folk dolls and folk costumes function as a chronological orientation. In Poland the live-sized costume and not the folk doll reminds the people of their collectively experienced time of resettlement and search for common roots. The common ethnic and regional relationship is more important than the historical dimension. For the German expellees the regional costume and folk dolls stand for their former homeland and their traditional customs. For the Polish expellees the regional costume stands above all for their new country and for the reconciliation of the different ethnic groups.