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positive effect was lacking in Masuria and the district of Kluczbork (Kreuzburg) in the part of
Silesia centred on Opole, where the local people were mostly Protestant. In Poland,
Protestantism was identified with German, and Catholicism with Polish, culture. (Even today,
there is still a widely held view that "a good Pole is a Catholic".) For this reason, the resettlers
in these regions were more disposed to classify the native population as Germans in spite of
their Polish origin. The year 1956 aroused new hopes, but it did not change very much as far as
the situation of the Silesian population was concerned. The disintegration processes gained
strength, and the fact that it was made possible for people to leave for the west to join their
families resulted in a wave of emigration from Poland that led to a further split in Polish society.
Since 1945, the problem of integration in the northern and western regions of Poland, especially
Upper Silesia, has been the subject of many scientific studies. Here, we shall just mention the
results of one of these investigations.
34
The research was carried out between 1982 and 1984
in a small village located in the part of Silesia centred on Opole, in which half the inhabitants are
Silesians and the other half resettlers from eastern Poland.
Although they had been neighbours for forty years, it was discovered that both groups lived
separate lives. There were no open conflicts between them, but there was no familiarity either.
The reasons were cultural differences (which made mutual contacts difficult), government policy
(which favoured the resettlers) and barriers to understanding (which could be explained by the
different forms of Polish spoken). The separation of, and the differences between, the groups
even existed in the second and third generation. The Silesians only identified with their own
ethnic group, and attached great importance to the external features that showed they were
different (their dialect, their clothing, the appearance and furnishing of their homes). The
resettlers did not want to be perceived as Silesians and described themselves as Poles. The
indigenous population compared themselves with the Germans and the resettlers with the
Poles. The statements made by the Silesians showed their disappointment with the Polish state
and the Poles. The existing differences, which they stressed, were evidence of the lack of
integration.
The fact that there has been no integration between the native and immigrant population is best
shown by the decades of increasing emigration by the former group to the Federal Republic of
Germany, and by the emergence of the German minority in Poland. This latter fact has once
again led to suspicion among some of the inhabitants of Upper Silesia.
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