Global patterns, local interpretations: new Polish museums dedicated to the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust

Wóycicka, Zofia

doi:10.1080/17504902.2019.1567660

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Although specific Greek public bodies and organizations could still impose conditions in terms of content, the public statements of national representatives suggest that it may eventually lead to promoting the dominant Greek narrative, at least on the discursive level. This works both ways: first, by externalizing guilt and sneaking in the notion of either the national “double genocide,” thereby supporting the myth of shared suffering as is the case in Baltic and other countries (Radonić 2018, 510–529); second, by promoting the harmonious coexistence of ethnic communities and the exceptional compassion and bravery of Greeks, which would correspond to recent developments in Poland, such as the turn toward rescuers of Jews (Wóycicka 2019) and the de-Holocaustization of the Holocaust (Janicka 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Holocaust Museum of Greece, Thessaloniki: In Whose Memory?

Karasová

Králová²

2022

Nationalities Papers

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This article explores the political and discursive framing of the emerging project Holocaust Museum of Greece (HMG) based in Thessaloniki (announced in 2013). As an “in situ” Holocaust museum, the HMG could represent an important step toward recognizing Jewish suffering in a country where—compared with the rest of Europe—unprecedentedly high levels of antisemitic attitudes have been recorded over the past decade. Supported by a qualitative media analysis and supplemented with data from our online survey, we explore how HMG stakeholders and potential local visitors reflect on the project. Occurring amid contemporary endeavors in Holocaust commemoration and Greek-German reconciliation, we connect it with their persistence in combating far-right tendencies and antisemitism. Specifically, we investigate whose memory HMG stakeholders aim to display, how they reflect on dominant Greek historical narratives and whether they express a clear memory commitment and a genuine effort to produce a more integrated historical interpretation of the Holocaust in Greece.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Holocaust Museum of Greece, Thessaloniki: In Whose Memory?

Karasová

Králová²

2022

Nationalities Papers

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“…Lieu de Mémoire au Chambon-sur-Lignon: List of names of the Righteous from Chambon and the neighboring villages (photo by Wóycicka, 2019). …”

Section: The Traveling Motifs Of Jewish Rescuementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Initially a branch of the Łańcut Castle Museum, in June 2017 the Ulma Museum was transformed into an independent cultural institution financed entirely by the central government. A building was erected just a few hundred meters from the actual historical site where the Ulmas lived, solely for the purpose of hosting the museum (broader on the museum see Grabowski and Libionka, 2017; Wóycicka, 2019).…”

Section: The Traveling Motifs Of Jewish Rescuementioning

confidence: 99%

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A global label and its local appropriations. Representations of the Righteous Among the Nations in contemporary European museums

Wóycicka

2021

Memory Studies

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This paper, intended as a contribution to transnational memory studies, analyzes museums devoted to people who helped Jews during the Holocaust that recently opened in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Lithuania, and Poland. The author’s particular interest lies in the “traveling motifs” of the “Righteous” narratives. This category encompasses symbols such as a list of names of the help-providers, a fruit tree/orchard, or a wall with photographs of Holocaust victims, which recur in many of the examined exhibitions and are a clear reference to Yad Vashem and other well-established Holocaust memorials. At first sight, they seem to point to a “cosmopolitanization” of Holocaust remembrance and to the emergence of a common reservoir of historical notions and images. However, on closer inspection one discovers that the use of these symbols varies and that they refer to differing ways of understanding and telling history.

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“…For the last couple of years, however, the relationship between (scholarly) arguments and (partisan) counter-arguments has been undergoing a process of institutionalisation. Opened in 2016, the Chapel of Memory of Rescuers (popularly called 'Polish Yad Vashem') in Toruń, and the Ulma-Family Museum of Poles Who Saved Jews in the Second World War in the village of Markowa, places Poland, a country which already has three such museums, as the world leader in museums devoted to the Righteous (Grabowski and Libionka 2017;Wóycicka 2019). In addition, the Minister of Culture founded the Warsaw Ghetto Museuma decision that many observers consider to be an attempt to take control of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews; and the Institute of National Remembrance is about to publish the first issue of the journal Polish-Jewish Studies, on whose editorial board the absence of international scholars, those from the Polish Center for Holocaust Research, the POLIN Museum, and the main Polish centres for Jewish studies affiliated with universities in Warsaw, Cracow and Wrocław, is striking (Croitoru 2019;Instytut 2019).…”

Section: Creating Memory Comfort Zones By Other Meansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mnemonic Populism: The Polish Holocaust Law and its Afterlife

Kończal¹

2020

European Review

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In early 2018, the Polish parliament adopted controversial legislation criminalising assertions regarding the complicity of the ‘Polish Nation’ and the ‘Polish State’ in the Holocaust. The so-called Polish Holocaust Law provoked not only a heated debate in Poland, but also serious international tensions. As a result, it was amended only five months after its adoption. The reason why it is worth taking a closer look at the socio-cultural foundations and political functions of the short-lived legislation is twofold. Empirically, the short history of the Law reveals a great deal about the long-term role of Jews in the Polish collective memory as an unmatched Significant Other. Conceptually, the short life of the Law, along with its afterlife, helps capture poll-driven, manifestly moralistic and anti-pluralist imaginings of the past, which I refer to as ‘mnemonic populism’. By exploring the relationship between popular and political images of the past in contemporary Poland, this article argues for joining memory and populism studies in order to better understand what can happen to history in illiberal surroundings.

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Global patterns, local interpretations: new Polish museums dedicated to the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust

Cited by 8 publications

References 8 publications

The Holocaust Museum of Greece, Thessaloniki: In Whose Memory?

The Holocaust Museum of Greece, Thessaloniki: In Whose Memory?

A global label and its local appropriations. Representations of the Righteous Among the Nations in contemporary European museums

Mnemonic Populism: The Polish Holocaust Law and its Afterlife

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