War and Soldiers
Time: 2025-09-18 12:00 - 14:00
Location: Conference room at Auditorium Maximum
Chairman: Piotr Filipkowski
Events within this Session
Experiences and Findings from Oral History Field Research of the Czech Soldiers Deployed in Lithuania and Slovakia as a Part of NATO's Military Presence During the War in Ukraine
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
Russia’s illegal and illegitimate annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 have fundamentally changed the security environment in Europe. NATO’s military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance is a key part of its strengthened deterrence and defence posture, which has been enhanced in recent years to reflect the new security reality in the Euro-Atlantic area. The current form of the Alliance’s eFP (enhanced forward presence) was established at the NATO summits in Warsaw (2016) and in Madrid (2022). It takes the form of brigade-strength multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Units of the Army of the Czech Republic operate in Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia as an integral part of mentioned multinational battle groups. In March and April 2024, I was sent to Lithuania and Slovakia as a team leader of military combat historians by Military History Institue Prague to conduct an oral history field research of the Czech soldiers. The core of the matter was focused on their operational deployment – what narrators did, experienced, faced, felt and how they reflected for example: the war in Ukraine, mission eFP, security threats from Russia and what they thought about it. The aim of my presentation is to display partial results of oral history research with czech soldiers operating in multinational brigades in Slovakia and Lithuania in 2024, with an emphasis on the specifics of the implementation of field oral history research by the team of the Military History Institute Prague.
Speakers
A Storytelling Café in Lüneburg, a Small Town in the German North. Testimonies from War and Exile
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
The project emerged from relationships between locals and Ukrainian refugees that began in March 2022. The shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine united helpers and new arrivals, traumatised women and children. We all thought the war would end quickly. It has now lasted more than two years, and more and more refugees - 2,000 in the district of Lüneburg - are preparing to stay. Their place of refuge becomes an exile, the struggle for survival turns into the desire to consciously shape their existence in a foreign country. This means many things, including storytelling. It started spontaneously, in language tandems, neighbourhoods, schools, in the church community, on excursions. Trust has grown in the German-Ukrainian network, sometimes even friendship. In spring 2024, the Museum Lüneburg invited Ukrainians from this network to a ‘storytelling café’. 15 women and 2 men came (from Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson, Kyiv). From the local side, the museum director and the curator, myself as a historian, three older volunteers, and two Ukrainians who have lived in Lüneburg for a long time as interpreters. An evening full of emotions - and doubts. Telling stories while the war continues? An imposition? An act of self-assertion with therapeutic aspects? What is the point of storytelling, for Ukraine’s future and for German public discourse? Storytelling cafés have had a certain tradition in Germany since the 1980s, since the emergence of oral history. But the fact that narrative time and narrated time are so close and painful to each other is new territory. Despite many unanswered questions, we set off on our journey. The Museum Lüneburg is a good place for this venture, migration has long been part of local history. https://www.museumlueneburg.de/ A joint concept is currently being developed. Topics: Escape from home to nowhere, arrival in Lüneburg, weeks of shock, life between two worlds, language lessons, etc. Documentation: family stories, photos, documents, chats, artifacts. Presentation: an exhibition, portraits on the museum’s website. In addition to the monthly meeting in the storytelling café, museum staff conduct semi-open interviews with refugees. The storytellers decide to what extent they want to show themselves publicly or remain anonymous so as not to jeopardise themselves and their families at home. They contribute their professional resources (as teachers, cultural workers, IT experts, etc.). The locals not only lend their ears, they also are narrators: how they are experiencing the “Zeitenwende” of February 24, 2022, 5 a.m., some will tell their own family fates. Lüneburg is a city of refugees, having taken in numerous displaced persons from East Prussia after 1945. The project remains a risk. We are learning as we go, constantly educating ourselves historically and methodologically and discussing ethical questions. Linguistic communication remains a delicate and controversial issue; in principle, Ukrainian is the narrative language. However, as some participants from eastern Ukraine speak Russian better, we sometimes switch between three languages and occasionally accept the friendly help of Russian Lüneburgers when interpreting and translating. We realise that changes in the war situation and the political climate in Germany can change and possibly paralyse our joint work.
Speakers
The Tale of the Capos
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
The figure of the „Kapo” is a frequent theme in testimonies of survivors of the Nazi concentration camps and the Holocaust. The proposed presention will ask in which way “Kapos” are presented in oral history interviews with survivors. “Kapo” (sometimes “Capo”) is a summary term used by many survivors for those prisoners in the concentration camps who, by order of the SS, were delegated with tasks in running the camp and supervising their fellow prisoners. The Kapo system has its roots in German penal system where inmates were appointed as “trusties” to facilitate work and enforce prison discipline. This so-called “self-administration” by prisoners was also introduced in the Nazi concentration camps and developed with the growth of the camps. The group of “prisoner functionaries” was extremely diverse and hierarchical with the “camp elder”, his deputies and the “camp secretaries” on top, the supervisors of the work details – the “Kapos” in the narrow sense –, and the block personnel (block elder, block barber, orderlies). “Kapos” worked in the administration, the kitchen, the camp hospital and many other “commandos” as well as in SS offices and facilities. Sometimes, “Kapos” were also involved in torturing and killing inmate; an extreme form were the “Sonderkommandos” in the extermination camps. Serving the purposes of the SS, the “Kapos” were rewarded with certain privileges. However, if they failed the expectations of the SS, they were threatened by dismissal or even death. From the earliest descriptions of the camp society by survivors, the “Kapos” are frequently associated with “criminal” and “asocial” prisoners. With the expansion of the concentration camp system in the late 1930s and the increased persecution of “socially undesirables” (“Gemeinschaftsfremden”), the SS recruited “Kapos” mainly from these groups who formed the majority of concentration camp inmates at that time. The early testimonies from the late 1940s – mostly written by former political, often communist prisoners – portray these prisoner functionaries predominantly negative as collaborators of the SS, “bandits”, brutal sadists, psychopaths and homosexuals. The central theme of these testimonies is to contrast the moral depravity of the “Kapos” with a counterpoint focusing on the international solidarity of the political prisoners and the successful struggle against the “green triangles” (the badge of the “criminal” inmates) by taking over their positions. The important role, that many of the authors of these early testimonies, played in associations of survivors fostered the exclusion of “criminal” and “asocial” prisoners from the memory of the camps. Many testimonies of survivors published later were deeply influenced by the highly politicized, anti-fascist “master narrative” of the “criminal Kapos”. Both academic research and the memory boom since the 1980s have led to a more differentiated view of the camp society. Important markers for this changed perception of everyday live in the concentration camp and the ambiguous role of the “Kapos” were i.a. Jorge Semprún’s novel “What a Beautiful Sunday” (1980), Primo Levi’s essay “The Grey Zone” (1986), or the heated academic and public debate on the role of the “red”, i.e. communist, “Kapos” in Buchenwald concentration camp after 1989. Semprún’s and Levi’s works were widely received and discussed by survivors and their associations and challenged the dominant narratives. The political developments since 1989 with the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the subsequent changing memory politics furthermore influenced and changed individual memories of survivors. Starting in the early 1980s, for many researchers oral history interviews with survivors of the Nazi concentration camps and the Holocaust have become one of the most important sources in academic research. Recorded audio and video interviews with survivors allow insights into the everyday live of the concentration camps beyond the “cold facts” of archival documents from the SS administration. Integrating oral history sources also shifted the focus of research from a strictly vertical, power-focused view of the camp society to social mechanisms structuring life in the camp. The proposed presentation therefore will ask, in which way “Kapos” are represented in survivors’ interviews. It will furthermore ask, how different national and/or social groups of survivors talk about the “Kapos” (i.a. Jewish/non-Jewish, male/female, long-term/short-term inmates etc.). It will explore if and how the representation of “Kapos” in interviews recorded since the 1990s has changed in comparison to the early post-war testimonies. Finally, it will ask if different and changing political environments resp. memory politics influenced the narration of survivors.
Speakers
Lending an Ear to German Soldiers. The Oral History Project of the Bundeswehr Centre of Military History and Social Sciences
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
While the armies in English-speaking nations have been interviewing their members about their experiences for many decades, there is no such tradition in the German armed forces. The Oral History Project of the Bundeswehr Center for Military History and Social Sciences aims to change this, because the soldiers’ perspectives hardly play a role in public discourse in Germany. In addition to high-ranking officers and representatives from politics and ministerial bureaucracy, the interviews with contemporary witnesses focus on soldiers who were deployed abroad. The historians are particularly interested in what the Afghanistan veterans have to say and what they did experience. What was everyday life like in the area of operations? How do they describe situations in which comrades died in attacks or combats? How did the troops react to such losses? What did soldiers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder experience? A central goal of the Oral History Project is to make these viewpoints known to the public and to preserve them for future generations. But why is the Bundeswehr carrying out such an elaborate project? How do the researchers exactly do this? What research projects can be expected in the future? This lecture aims to explore these questions.
Speakers
The Voice of the Soldiers: Oral History as a Form for the Therapeutic Processing of Military Experience and Trauma
Type: session | Language: English
Time: 12:00 - 14:00
Abstract
This paper examines the therapeutic value of oral history in the context of interviews with members of the military who have participated in modern foreign military operations. The utilization of oral history for the collection of narratives and experiences can be of significant importance, not only for the participants themselves but also for the interviewers who bear witness to the traumatic memories and challenges. Research encompasses an examination of the capacity of interviews to facilitate the transformation of soldiers’ experiences. Furthermore, the paper considers the reflection of the interviewers themselves, examining how they respond to the emotional demands of this work and how they perceive the impact of the information-gathering process on their own understanding of war and trauma. The result is a comprehensive examination of how oral history can function as a therapeutic tool for both parties and how it can facilitate a more profound comprehension of traumatic experiences. The paper draws upon interviews and experiences gained within the project entitled ‘Memory of a Soldier: Stories of Foreign Operations.’ It is important to pay special attention to the ethical aspects of research in the context of sensitive information obtained from interviews with military professionals. It is essential to be able to work with the need for anonymity, caution, and security when conducting interviews as part of this research. Given the psychological stresses that soldiers often face, the creation of a space for the sharing of such experiences can be beneficial. The dialogue that is created in this way can help to overcome trauma while also providing valuable information for a better understanding of the psychological and emotional aspects of military life. Ultimately, such research contributes to the understanding of the issue and helps to create better conditions for the psychological rehabilitation and integration of soldiers after their return from missions.