Paper long abstract:

Warmia-Masuria is a historical and administrative region of north-eastern Poland. Before 1945 it belonged to Germany as a part of Eastern Prussia province. During the 1945-1946 the population of the area experienced a massive flight from advancing Soviet troops, harsh reality of military administration and forced displacements. Subsequently the region was repopulated by Polish immigrants by the state administration. In my paper I will bring up the topic of war trauma as a key biographical element in narrations of people from the "war generation" - especially different narrative strategies of dealing with this chapter of their biographies. I will refer to the data from my interviews with the people born in the region before 1945 and still remaining in their homeland. In conclusion I will discuss relations between "war generation", their personal identities and memory, and contemporary attempts to (re)construct local identity in specific conditions of ethnic, historical and political discontinuity.