Anka1  Department of History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Between 'Deutschland' and 'Polska': The Clash of Identities in Interwar Eastern Upper Silesia
In my dissertation " Between 'Deutschland' and 'Polska': The Clash of Identities in Interwar
Eastern Upper Silesia", I deal with two groups of population: the Jewish and the Silesian in
a former German border area which was shifted to Poland after the World War I. I study the
dynamics of belonging of these non-national groups, the change in their self-definition
and its clash with an intensive process of “nationalization” or “Polonization” which took place
in this area between the wars. I concentrate on a time period of 13 years, from 1921, the year
of the plebiscite in Upper Silesia, until 1934 when Poland and Germany signed a non-aggression pact.
In the case of the Silesian group I focus on the education system and in the case of the Jewish
community, I concentrate on the B’nai B’rith lodge “Concordia”, to which belonged the German
speaking elite of the Jewish population of Katowice.