Schlesiens Wilder Westen (2002)

Overview

"I can live better in a place whose history I know," says a young Pole in the prologue of this film. He lives in Kopaniec, formerly Seifershau - a village in Lower Silesia. Between the past and the present lay the expulsion of the Germans and the resettlement of the Poles, many of whom were themselves expellees from what is now Ukraine. The village is the focus of the film and the link between the former and present inhabitants. The younger Poles have grown up with the visits of the former German inhabitants. The life stories of the older Poles and Germans tell of war and expulsion, but also of the time when they lived together in the village, directly after the war. The region was called "The Wild West" in Poland at the time. "Silesia's Wild West" asks what home is: a place, a person, a feeling, a memory?