ABSTRACT
The chapter describes my journey to understand and document the 20th-century multi-cultural refugee/Holocaust history of people who live or lived in which my German Jewish father grew up, called Reichenbach in Silesia in Germany before the War, and Dzierżoniów in Poland after. As a German town of about 25,000, where there were never more than 150 Jews prewar, by 1947 there were 17,500 and it was called the Polish Jerusalem. Now the town is 99% Polish Catholic. My journey uncovers the stories of these refugees as well as those of German and Polish origin who were forced to leave and/or arrive, and of refugees from the Greek Civil War. I decided I wanted to capture these as personal oral history stories. As I only speak English, this chapter tells the story of how I have involved others and interviewed and documented over 50+ stories in five languages with people who now live in more than ten countries. My objective is to create an exhibition in the town that will be accessible in a number of languages alongside a “sound” installation of their voices. The town is very keen on an exhibition and has offered a number of venues to show it. Each story will be accessible in a 2,000-word format in printed form, on the internet, and in archives. It will enable those whose families live or lived there to own, understand, and value their heritage. More broadly, it illustrates suffering, dislocation, migration and revival, and is a story about the refugee experience.
