Bringing the History back to Light

by Tom Szustek

West Pomerania – former German territories incorporated into Poland after World War II.

It took several decades for the Poles to finally feel responsible for this land and its history, no matter how cruel and unjust it was.

Under the supervision of Dr Marek Luczak, a group of volunteers has been cleaning old German cemeteries and searching for the tombstones of late residents of the city of Szczecin and its surroundings.

After 1945, when West Pomerania became a part of Poland, most of the German cemeteries were erased from the landscape, as a collective punishment for the harm done during World War II.

Today, as time passed, hostile sentiments towards our EU neighbour and partner have faded in collective memory and many Polish associations try to restore pieces of the history of former inhabitants of these lands, who died long ago before the German Nazis attacked Poland.

All recovered tombstones are digitally documented and entered into a database that allows the identification of individuals and their stories in German archives.

By bringing these tombstones back to light, the volunteers restore the history of these – now Polish – lands and they make the history of their own. (2021)

  • 19th-century German tombstone lays on the leaves.
  • Woman walks through the dense bushes
  • A group of 8 people dig with shovels among the trees
  • Man reveals the tombstone laying in the ground with the shovel
  • 5 tombstones lay on the ground while a group of 5 men dig out with the shovels
  • 2 people try to put together pieces of broken tombstone
  • Half unearthed tombstone
  • A group of people clean the cemetery beside the ruins of medieval church
  • Woman cleans the recovered tombstone
  • Pieces of a broken tombstone with name and dates
  • 3 man clean and measure the recovered tombstones
  • Marek Łuczak PhD is documenting on his knees recovered tombstones
  • 2 men clean the large tombstone
  • Two women are cleaning a freshly uncovered tombstone
  • Dr Marek Łuczak documents in his writing pad the recovered tombstone illuminated with the electric torch
  • 2 men at the old German cemetery with pieces of recovered tombstones lying on the ground
  • Iron crosses among the bushes
  • A group of people search the cemetery with shovels for tombstones
  • 3 hands pick up from the ground the pieces of broken tombstones
  • Kneeling man tooks out from the ground a freshly discovered piece of stone cross
  • A group of people clean the old cemetery near the ruins of the medieval church
  • Piece of medieval church ruins covered in trees and bushes
  • Videographer holds a camera with microphone above the freshly uncovered iron cross lying in the ground
  • Man and a woman hold a freshly recovered tombstone
  • Dr Marek łuczak documents the recovered old German tombstones
  • Man cuts the bushes with the machete at the old German cemetery
  • Big iron cross leaning against the bushes
  • Group of men pull to the surface the big stone cross using straps
  • Recovered tombstones gathered among the trees
  • Head of an iron statue of an angel with ingrown root lying on the hand in white gloves