Die „Waldmenschen“. Eine emotionale Gemeinschaft im deutsch besetzten Polen 1939–1945

Abstract

Historians are increasingly turning their attention to the role that emotions have played in
history. It is curious that World War II, with its omnipresent history of violence, has hardly
ever been studied from this point of view. This essay aims to help remedy this research
desideratum and uses Barbara Rosenwein’s concept of emotional communities to work out
the correlation between individuals’ and collective emotions and community building. I exclusively used contemporary diaries as a source, which, as snapshots, provide a good insight
into the emotional state of the writers. The analysis of the concepts and manifestations of
feelings in the language and in the imagination of the respective writers makes it possible to
identify the emotional community of the “forest people.” These were partisans in rural
Poland who, in their diaries, express hatred and patriotism in a similar way and use them to
legitimize their acts of sabotage and resistance against the German occupiers.