Forgotten dissidents? Emigrants from Czechoslovakia and Poland and their fight for democracy and European understanding

financed by the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship
Project duration: 01/2025 - 03/2026

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The aim of the archival project is to catalog the personal papers of the German-Czech civil rights activist, author and artist Karel Trinkewitz (1931-2014) and the documentation of the Polish Solidarność representatives Andrzej and Mirosława Wirga of their Mainz-based supporting committee Solidarnosc e.V. (1983-1989).  

Their example is used to illustrate documents of civil rights activists who were forced to emigrate from their home countries to the Federal Republic of Germany after the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 and the repression against Charter 77, or in the course of the imposition of martial law in 1981 and the subsequent ban on the Solidarność trade union, and who continued their commitment on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

It will be shown how regime critics and opposition activists from East Central Europe acted from exile as key supporters for those who remained in the communist countries and, with their activities and personal networks, formed an echo chamber in the West. that contributed to the fall of communism and the success of the democratic movements in the countries.

Project team:
Project management: Dr. Manuela Putz
Archivists: Ivana Doslikova, Karina Garsztecka