Guide to the Wanka Collection, University of Winnipeg

Abstract

The items that comprise the Wanka Collection reflect the late Wilhelm Wanka’s interest in the fate of the Germans who, after World War II, were expelled from what was known as the Sudetenland. The Sudetenland was never a specific geographical or political unit but rather was a name derived from the Sudeten Mountains located in the northeast part of Czechoslovakia. Until 1919 the term was usually understood to mean the German parts of northern Moravia and of the portion of Silesia that belonged to Austria. After World War I, Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia became part of the new Czechoslovakian republic and the name Sudetenland came to refer to all the German parts of Czechoslovakia.