The Politics of Holocaust Memory in Central and Eastern Europe: Contemporary Poland as a Comparative Case Study

Abstract

This chapter examines the contentious politics of Holocaust memory in contemporary Poland as a comparative case study. It presents an overview of three controversies since the electoral victory of the Law and Justice Party in 2015, followed by an analysis of the Jedwabne debate in the early 2000s—the most profound discussion of Polish-Jewish relations since the Second World War. It then contextualizes the politics of Holocaust memory in Poland within a comparative-historical framework, drawing parallels to forms of Holocaust distortion in present day Hungary as a means of elucidating the Polish case. The chapter concludes by discussing Polish collective memory and the Holocaust in relation to Hungary and urges scholars to interrogate the instrumentalization of the Holocaust as a sociological phenomenon permeating national and transnational politics in post-Communist Europe.

The “Jewish turn” in contemporary Poland: Philosemitism, civic nationalism, and the construction of a symbolic other

“…The responses to Gross's book were varied, ranging from denial and distortion on one side to self‐critical engagement with the most difficult aspects of Poland's past on the other (see Ref. [Zisook, 2023] for an analysis of these responses and their present political implications). It is in such a context that Polish philosemitism emerges on the scene, bolstered by a more general “Western” pivot with Poland's accession to the European Union in 2004.…”