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ABSTRACT
This article examines four recently (re)opened Polish exhibitions dedicated to people who helped Jews during World War II: The Eagle Pharmacy/Kraków, the Żabińskis’ Villa/Warsaw, The Ulma Museum/Markowa and the Holocaust gallery in Polin/Warsaw. Each display approaches the topic from a different standpoint, revealing the scope of possible narratives on Jewish rescue in contemporary Poland. The study argues that while the establishment of these museums is part of a broader European trend to commemorate 'the Righteous', global patterns are being adapted to local needs. Though national memory politics sets a general framework, much depends on the actual stakeholders and core audiences.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Zofia Wóycicka, PhD, is a researcher at the Centre for Historical Research Berlin of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She studied history and sociology at the University of Warsaw and the Friedrich-Schiller University Jena. Wóycicka did her PhD at the School for Social Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences and at the University of Warsaw. She worked at the Educational Centre of Polin – Museum of the History of Polish Jews/Warsaw (2007–2011), as an assisting professor at the University of Warsaw (2010–2011) and as an exhibition curator at the House of European History/Brussels (2011–2015). Her main research interests lie in Memory and Museum Studies with a special focus on World War II. She authored amongst others Arrested Mourning. Memory of the Nazi Camps in Poland, 1944–1950 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter-Lang Verlag, 2013).
Notes
*The text was proofread by Nicholas Hodge.
1. Croitoru, “War die heldenhafte Familie Ulma etwa typisch?” All German and Polish texts translated by the Author.
2. Kamiński, “Finger weg von unseren Helden!”.
3. Adered, “Polish Museum Honoring Poles Who Saved Jews Arouses Controversy”.
4. Grabowski and Libionka, “Bezdroża polityki historycznej.”
5. Grabowski and Libionka, “Wsadzili nas na wozy, powieźli jak bydło”.
6. See i.a.: “IPN odpowiada GW po ataku na Muzeum Ulmów: ‘Historia jest o wiele bardziej skomplikowana niż wydaje się autorom tekstu.’” 2014. wPolityce.pl, December. 10. http://wpolityce.pl/historia/318823-tylko-u-nas-ipn-odpowiada-gw-po-ataku-na-muzeum-ulmow-historia-jest-o-wiele-bardziej-skomplikowana-niz-wydaje-sie-autorom-tekstu; Szpytma, “Czyje to bezdroża?”.
7. The category ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ was established and defined by Yad Vashem in the 1950s-1960s. It refers to non-Jews who helped Jews during World War II and whose deeds have been recognized by the institute. However, lately it is increasingly used to describe people who rescued Jews, even if they did not receive the Yad Vashem diploma. To avoid confusion, I use the term ‘Righteous’ only for people who were recognized as such by Yad Vashem or in case this term is being explicitly used by people or institutions I am writing about.
8. Pióro, Magister Tadeusz Pankiewicz.
9. Pankiewicz, Apteka w getcie krakowskim.
10. On the postwar history if the site and the establishment of the museum see: Pióro, “The Eagle Pharmacy,” 187–231; Maischein, “Der Augenzeuge des Judenmords,” 233–43.
11. Pióro, “The Eagle Pharmacy,” 220; E-mail from Monika Bednarek, June 27, 2017; E-mail from Katarzyna Kocik, July 29, 2018.
12. http://www.mhk.pl/exhibitions/13 as of June 9, 2017
13. Interview with Olga Zbonikowska made by the author, Warsaw, April 13, 2017.
14. Ibid.; ‘Sprawozdanie z działalności Fundacji Panda za rok 2014,’ http://panda.zoo.waw.pl/sprawozdanie-z-dzialalnosci-fundacji-panda-za-rok-2014.html as of August 12, 2018. The ERDF contributed 400 of the 570 thousand Zloty (95.000/135.000 Euro) total cost.
15. Interview with Olga Zbonikowska.
16. Meeting with Mateusz Szpytma within a study trip to Markowa, July 23, 2016.
17. “Muzeum Polaków Ratujących Żydów będzie współprowadzone przez MkiDN.” Dzieje.pl, April 10, 2017. https://dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/muzeum-polakow-ratujacych-zydow-bedzie-wspolprowadzone-przez-mkidn
18. Interview with Karolina Ożóg conducted by Zofia Wóycicka, Kraków, July 19, 2018.
19. http://www.portalsamorzadowy.pl/wydarzenia-lokalne/muzeum-polakow-ratujacych-zydow-bedzie-wspolprowadzone-przez-resort-kultury,92269.html as of June 19, 2017.
20. See: Forecki, “Muzeum zgody w Markowej.”
21. Meeting with Anna Stróż, the director of the Ulma Museum during a study trip to Markowa, March 30, 2017.
22. http://muzeumulmow.pl/en/museum/about-museum as of June 8, 2017
23. Meeting with Anna Stróż, the director of the Ulma Museum during a study trip to Markowa, March 30, 2017.
24. http://muzeumulmow.pl/en/museum/about-museum as of June 20, 2017.
25. On the history of the museum see also: Wóycicka, “1,000 Years in a Museum,” 241–42.
26. Ewaluacja wystawy stałej: badania styczeń-luty 2017, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich. E-Mail from Marek Łoś from the Marketing Department of Polin, June 23, 2017.
27. Judt, Postwar, 803.
28. Gensburger, “La diffusion transnationale,” 537, 539–43.
29. “Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust,” International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/about-us/stockholm-declaration as of March 24, 2017. Task Force, since 2013 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
30. “Declaration of the European Parliament of 10 May 2012 on support for the establishment of a European Day of Remembrance for the Righteous,” European Parliament. Accessed Dec. 5, 2017. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7-TA-2012-0205+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN.
31. Gensburger, “La diffusion transnationale,” 543.
32. On the French case see: Gensburger, National Policy, Global Memory.
33. Gensburger, “La diffusion transnationale,” 541.
34. Dimiter Peshev Museum in Kyustendil/Bulgaria (2002), Museum Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind (2006/2018), The Silent Heroes Memorial Centre, Berlin (2008/2018), The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, permanent exhibition “Lithuanian Jewish Child tells about the Shoah” (2009), Žaņis Lipke Memorial, Riga (2012), Lieu de Mémoire au Chambon-sur-Lignon/France (2013),Villa Emma Nonantola Foundation/Italy (exhibition ‘Jewish Children of Villa Emma,’ 2001/2014, new permanent exhibition under construction).
35. On the early Polish debates on rescue of Jewish see: Libionka, “Polskie piśmiennictwo,” 18–25.
36. Ibid., 31–4. The book based on the gathered material was published in 1967: Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej.
37. Libionka, “Polskie piśmiennictwo,” 34–7; Głowiński, “Marcowe fabuły,” 76–80.
38. Wóycicka, “Zur ‘Internationalität’ der Gedenkkultur,” 282–302.
39. Leociak, “Warszawa upamiętnia Sprawiedliwych.”
40. To mention only the movies In Darkness by Agnieszka Holland (2011) and W ukryciu [In Hiding] by Jan Kidawa-Błoński (2013), the television series Sprawiedliwi [The Righteous] by Waldemar Krzystek (2010) and the documentaries Historia Kowalskich [The Story of the Kowalski] by Arkadiusz Gołębiewski and Maciej Pawlicki (2009) and Historia Ireny Sendlerowej [The Story of Irena Sendler] by Andrzej Wolf (2016).
41. Nowicka-Franczak, Niechciana debata, 306–19.
42. See i.a.: Engelking, ‘Jest taki piękny słoneczny dzień … ’; Grabowski, Hunt for the Jews; Grabowski, Dalej jest noc; Machcewicz and Persak, Wokół Jedwabnego.
43. Gensburger and Niewiedzial, Figure du Juste, paragraphs 27–34.
44. “‘Protest!’”. On the text by Kossak-Szczucka see: Żukowski, “Sprawiedliwi – sposób dyskryminacji Żydów,” 21–2. Compare also: Gensburger and Niewiedzial, Figure du Juste, paragraph 30.
45. “Ustawa z dnia 26 stycznia 2018 r. o zmianie ustawy o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej – Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, ustawy o grobach i cmentarzach wojennych, ustawy o muzeach oraz ustawy o odpowiedzialności podmiotów zbiorowych za czyny zabronione pod groźbą kary,” Dz.U. 2018, poz. 369; “Ustawa z dnia 27 czerwca 2018 r. o zmianie ustawy o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej – Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu oraz ustawy o odpowiedzialności podmiotów zbiorowych za czyny zabronione pod groźbą kary,” Dz.U. 2018, poz. 1277.
46. Kuraś, “Muzeum Sprawiedliwych spod Auschwitz opowie o dobrych Polakach.”
47. “Report from the XXXII IAC Meeting, July 2–3, 2017” http://auschwitz.org/en/museum/auschwitz-council/iac-meetings/meeting-xxxii-2-3-july-2017,28.html as of August 7, 2018.
48. “Muzeum Pamięci Mieszkańców Ziemi Oświęcimskiej kolejną instytucją współprowadzoną przez MKiDN,” June 14, 2018. http://www.mkidn.gov.pl/pages/posts/muzeum-pamieci-mieszkancow-ziemi-oswiecimskiej-kolejna-instytucja-wspolprowadzona-przez-mkidn-8428.php as of August 7, 2018.
49. Mrozek, “Rydzyk wycenił się na 88 milionów”.
50. “W Toruniu powstanie Muzeum ‘Pamięć i Tożsamość’ im. Św. Jana Pawła II” June 21, 2018. http://www.radiomaryja.pl/informacje/w-toruniu-powstanie-muzeum-pamiec-i-tozsamosc-im-sw-jana-pawla-ii/ as of August 7, 2018.
51. Interview with Olga Zbonikowska.
52. http://muzeumulmow.pl/en/museum/the-museum-building as of June 10, 2017.
53. Rączy, Pomoc Polaków dla ludności żydowskiej, 25; Rączy, “Stosunki polsko-żydowskie,” 893, 914. In autumn 1944, 2921 people registered in the regional Jewish Committees.
54. Grabowski and Libionka, “Bezdroża polityki historycznej”.
55. Rzepliński, “Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej?,” 458–59.
56. Szpytma, “Zbrodnia na ludności żydowskiej,” 62; Grabowski and Libionka, “Bezdroża polityki historycznej,” 638–39.
57. Testimony of Janiny Kordasiewicz, written down on Jan. 18, 1967, Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute, archival no. 301/6358. Thanks to Justyna Majewska who searched this material for me.
58. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Polonsky, Polin, 290.
59. Pióro, “The Eagle Pharmacy,” 226.
60. http://muzeumulmow.pl/en/museum/about-museum as of June 8, 2017.
61. Levy and Sznaider, “Memory Unbound,” 88.
62. Leggewie, Der Kampf um die europäische Erinnerung, 15–21; Assmann, Auf dem Weg zu einer europäischen Gedächtniskultur?, 30–6; Gensburger, “La diffusion transnationale,” 543–48.
63. Macdonald, Memorylands, 188–215.
64. Macdonald, Difficult Heritage, 123.
65. Gensburger, National Policy, Global Memory, 125.