The Zamenhof Bialystok Cultural Center hosted a presentation and a creative meeting with the editor of the book “Poles in the East. Oral history”. The more than 600 pages of the book contain the stories of Poles who, after the Second World War, remained living beyond the eastern borders of Poland.
“We started traveling beyond the eastern border of Poland in 2006. We were going to listen to the stories of the Poles who stayed there and did not leave after 1945. It was important for us to listen to the stories that had not been told to anyone until now. We knew that if they didn’t tell them to anyone, then these stories would go away with these people. We wanted them to be recorded so that they could be archived. So that others can find out even after a hundred years what they told about their lives,” said Dominik Czapigo, the editor of the book who directly recorded these oral histories.
Presentation of the book “Poles in the East. Oral history ” and the discussion around it was conducted by the author of similar collections, but with the stories of the inhabitants of Podlasie, Aneta Primaka-Oniszk: “I talked to people, talked to people here in Bialystok region, collected their stories. This is a very important meeting for me, a very important book. It not only shows us this reality of people who stayed on the other side of the border, or lived in Soviet Belarus after 1921.”
The book “Poles in the East. Oral History ” originated on the basis of expeditions in 2006-2011 in Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Romania. The results of which were recorded by almost 1,075 respondents and about 4,000 photos and documents. Some of which formed the basis of the publication.