After 1945, German Breslau was transformed into Ur-Polish Wrocław at Stalin’s behest. Most of the remaining prewar population was expelled, and a stable population of a few hundred with German ethnic background is estimated to have lived in the city since then. This paper is based on qualitative analysis of 30 oral history interviews from among the self-defined German minority. It pays close attention to historical context, urban milieu, and salient narratives of identity as shaping forces, which include the suppression of German culture under Communism, prevalent intermarriage between Germans and Poles, and the city’s qualified reinvention as “multicultural” after Polish independence in 1989. Together with the group’s relatively small numbers, these narratives play out in their hybrid approach to ethnicity, often invoking blended cultural practices or the ambiguous geographical status of the Silesian region, to avoid choosing between “national” antipodes of “German” and “Polish.” The results follow Rogers Brubaker’s insight into ethnicity as an essentializing category used to construct groups where individual self-perception may differ; and the concept of “national indifference,” previously applied to rural populations. It also suggests we might better approach circumscribed “minority” identities such as these, by seeing them as a form of “sub-culture.
