Transnational, transborder, antinational? The memory of the Jewish past in Poland

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore the interaction between local, national, and transnational frames of memory as it manifests itself in the contemporary commemoration of the Jewish past. Focusing on the case study of Poland, I argue that articulations of transnational memory still remain deeply rooted in local and national interests and mythologies, reflecting the fears, desires, or longings of memory makers. Ranging from digital media which stress the interactive and agency-based dimension of transnational memory, through to vernacular “stumbling blocks” inspired by German citizens and subsequently transplanted onto the Polish ground, to public memorials which are either embraced or contested by a variety of social actors, these initiatives urge us to rethink traditional approaches to memory. In particular, these different scales and locations of remembrance question the common perception of collective memory as rooted in rigid nation-state frameworks in favor of memories that travel, move, and transgress multiple boundaries and affect multiple communities.

Keywords:

• transnational memory
• Jewish past
• Holocaust
• commemoration in Poland

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the EURIAS grant from The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS). I am grateful to the institute for hosting me during the 2014–15 academic year and providing an ideal environment in which this work could develop. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for Nationalities Papers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. In 1998 the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, earlier known as the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, was established to support education, commemoration, and research on the Holocaust. It consists of 31 member states and four observer states. The creation of IHRA institutionalized the memory of the Holocaust and created a set of common standards to be followed where memory and education on atrocity is concerned.

2. In 2008 the EU recognized these differences, making 23 August the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. Nonetheless, the demands of the majority of East/Central European states to criminalize the denial and trivialization of Communist crimes have not yet been met.

3. While the international following generated by Henio's Polish social networking site makes it certainly an interesting example of transnational commemoration, it can also be seen as part of wider practices which use Facebook to attract young audiences and educate them about the Holocaust, be it for commercial or strictly commemorative reasons. The memory of Anne Frank, another child victim of the Shoah, has often been celebrated through the use of social networking sites. For example, in 2011 the American publisher of Anne's diary Doubleday established an English-language profile for “Anne Frank, the Author” in cooperation with Anne Frank House. Going as far back as 1929 when the girl was born, the posts use both third-person narration and excerpts from the diary to recall events from her life. Yet, it is clear that unlike Henio's profile which was a commemorative project from the start, this particular profile is used to promote the activities of the museum and the publisher, making it largely a commercial enterprise.

4. Of course, this is different in the context of Palestine where the Shoah is often discussed in the context of the Nakba. According to Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg, many Palestinians consider the Holocaust

as a catastrophe for which the Arabs were compelled to pay, even though they bore no responsibility for its occurrence. Moreover, some Palestinians believe that Zionism and the State of Israel have made cynical political usage of the Holocaust in order to divest themselves of responsibility for their actions towards the Palestinians and to suspend the latter's collective and individual rights. (Bashir and Goldberg 2014, 81)

Needless to say, this opinion is shared by a large part of the international community.

5. This is, of course, a common trend in other post-German cities across Poland. Magdalena Waligórska argues that the “nostalgia for a different time and place may actually be more acute in the Recovered Lands than it is elsewhere in Poland” (2015, 110). She goes on to show how this phenomenon plays out in Szczecin where German and Jewish heritages are being used to construct the city's new identity.

6. The Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous city-state under the protection of the League of Nations created in 1920.

7. The petitioners' argument is charged with ideology, in particular the evocation of Polish children who presumably are to be distinguished from Jewish children. While this kind of phrasing might be justified by the fact that the letter speaks of the Free City of Danzig, it is also imbued with latent anti-Jewish sentiment. In particular the narrowly defined national identity which excludes Jewish influences is a sign of that sentiment.

8. See also Underhill (2011).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a EURIAS Fellowship from The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS).