Mixed Metaphors in Muranów: Holocaust Memory and Architectural Meaning at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Abstract

Since it opened in 2013, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw has been widely praised by journalists and scholars for its permanent exhibition and striking architecture. Built on the site of the former Warsaw ghetto established by the Nazis in World War II, the museum has been identified as a symbol of improved Polish–Jewish relations in the wake of the Holocaust. Few commentators, however, have delved deeply into the complexities of the museum’s architectural relationship to the Holocaust. This essay traces the long discussion surrounding the architectural symbolism of the museum – from its inception up to its recent completion – in order to illustrate how the Holocaust continues to pose major challenges to architects as they wrestle with the task of building after Auschwitz.

Keywords:

• memory
• architecture
• Holocaust
• Poland
• deconstructivism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The figure is cited in Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “The Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” in Erica T. Lehrer and Michael Meng (eds.), Jewish Space in Contemporary Poland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015), p. 267.

2 The institutions included the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, the City of Warsaw, the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, and a group of American donors led by San Francisco businessman Tad Taube and the Koret Foundation. For a general survey, see the museum’s exhibition catalogue: Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Antony Polonsky (eds.), Polin: 1000 Year History of Polish Jews (Warsaw: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2014), pp. 12–19.

3 U.S. Congress, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Museum of the History of Polish Jews: Hearing Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., 2008, pp. 25–27.

4 Moshe Rosman, “Categorically Jewish, Distinctly Polish: The Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the New Polish–Jewish Metahistory,” Studia Judaica 32:2 (2013), http://www.ejournals.eu/SJ/2013/Numer-2(32)/art/5447.

5 See Maria Piechotka and Kazimierz Piechotka, Wooden Synagogues (Warsaw: Arkady, 1959).

6 Vanessa Gera, “Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw to Celebrate Jewish Life in Poland,” Huffington Post, October 28, 2012, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/28/jewish-museum-poland_n_2033699.html.

7 See Gavriel Rosenfeld, Building After Auschwitz: Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), Chapter 8.

8 Rosenfeld, Building After Auschwitz, pp. 186–198.

9 Andrzej Kiciński, “Konkurs Na Projekt Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich W Warszawie – Idea, Twórcy, Zadanie, Wynik,” Muzealnictwo, Nr. 46, 2005, p. 85, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nwcVn3Bv-poJ:muzealnictworocznik.com/fulltxt.php%3FICID%3D1089664±&cd=5&hl=pl&ct=clnk&gl=pl.

10 Andrzej Oseka, “Memory’s Scar,” Wprost, July 10, 2005; “About the Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” Krajobraz Warszawski 73A (2005), http://www.architektura.um.warszawa.pl/sites/default/files/KW_073a_S.pdf. This article, like the other translated articles about the museum, was originally stored on the museum’s website and accessible to web users in 2013. They have since been deleted.

11 Michal Wojtczuk, “Canyon of Remembrance,” Gazeta Wyborcza, July 1, 2005, accessed Spring 2013, http://www.jewishmuseum.org.pl/en/cms/media/1086,canyon-of-remembrance/.

12 Boguslaw Deptula, “Moderation and Passion,” Tygodnik Powszechny, July 17, 2005.

13 See Rosenfeld, Building After Auschwitz, Chapter 10.

14 Ibid., pp. 262–264.

15 Peter MacKeith (ed.), Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects: Works (Helsinki: Rakennustieto, 2015).

16 Maciej Szczepaniuk, “The Holocaust Is Not Only the History of the Jews,” Rzeczpospolita, July 14, 2005.

17 Szczepaniuk, “The Holocaust Is Not Only the History of the Jews” and Agnieszka Rasmus-Zgorzelska, “A Museum Like a Church,” Ozon, August 4, 2005.

18 Rasmus-Zgorzelska, “A Museum Like a Church.”

19 Ilmari Lahdelma and Rainer Mahlamäki, interview by Peter MacKeith, Arkkitehti, vol. 110, no. :4 (2013):, p. 18.

20 “Museum of the History of the Polish Jews,” Divisare, http://divisare.com/projects/254875-lahdelma-mahlamaki-museum-of-the-history-of-the-polish-jews.

21 “The Former Warsaw Ghetto Site Will Host the Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” European Copper Institute, press release, November 28, 2011, http://copperconcept.org/sites/default/files/attachment/2015/prmuseumofthehistoryofpolishjews3.pdf; Lahdelma and Mahlamäki, interview by MacKeith; and Ed Kasprzycka, “Warsaw Jewish Museum Uses Finnish Design,” Washington Post, June 30, 2005.

22 Szczepaniuk, “The Holocaust Is Not Only the History of the Jews” and Rasmus-Zgorzelska, “A Museum Like a Church.”

23 See James Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), Chapter 6.

24 U.S. Congress, Commission, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, p. 28.

25 Oseka, “Memory’s Scar;” Gera, “Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw to Celebrate Jewish Life in Poland;” and “Finns to Design Controversial Jewish Museum,” European Jewish Press, July 24, 2005, http://ejpress.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=518&Itemid=2.

26 POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, http://www.polin.pl/en/media/polin-museum-facts-and-figures.

27 See the firm’s website: http://www.ark-l-m.fi/museum-of-the-history-of-polish-jews.html.The jury phrased it slightly differently, calling it “a ritual of passage or transcendence between the long road of Polish Jewish history and the symbolic and generous opening for a peaceful and bountiful culture,” “About the Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” p. 7.

28 Kasprzycka, “Warsaw Jewish Museum Uses Finnish Design;” Krzysztof Kopacz, “‘Schindler’s Schindler’s List’ Factory in Poland Will Be a Museum,” Associated Press, July 2, 2005, http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/uniontrib/20050702/news_1n2schindler.html.

29 Marta Szafranksa, “Finnish Crystal,” Trybuna, July 1, 2005, accessed spring 2013, http://www.jewishmuseum.org.pl/en/cms/media/1085,finnish-crystall/.

30 Wojtczuk, “Canyon of Remembrance” and; Daniel Zysk, “Finnish Architect Visited Warsaw,” Zycie Warszawy, July 14, 2005.

31 Rasmus-Zgorzelska, “A Museum Like a Church.”

32 Wojtczuk, “Canyon of Remembrance.”

33 U.S. Congress, Commission, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, p. 28.

34 Lahdelma and Mahlamäki, Museum of the History of Polish Jews – A Journey of a Thousand Years (Design Proposal for the Architectural Competition), no date, accessed at http://www.betoni.com/Download/23906/04_VBR%202012%20Betonin%20mahdollisuuksia,%20Juutalaisen%20historian%20museo,%20Rainer%20Mahlam%C3%A4ki%20-%20Arkkitehtitosto%20Lahdelma%20&%20Mahlam%C3%A4ki%20Oy%20.pdf.

35 “Stories of Polin,” POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, http://storiesofpolin.com.

36 It was awarded the European Musem of the Year prize (2016), http://www.polin.pl/en/news/2015/12/22/european-museum-of-the-year-award-2016-goes-to-polin-museum, the Finlandia Prize in Architecture (2014), http://www.ark-l-m.fi/museum-of-the-history-of-polish-jews.html; and the Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award (2008), http://culture.pl/en/place/polin-museum-of-the-history-of-polish-jews.

37 One of the more deepest and most sensitive reading was provided by Peter MacKeith, “A Monument to Tragedy and Heroism,” Architectural Record, December 16, 2013. See also his interview with Lahdelma and Mahlamäki in Arkkitehti, 110:4 (2013), p. 18, 26.

38 Pavel Pustelnik, “Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” Jewish Journal (2013), http://www.jewishjournal.com/jewrnalism/item/museum_of_the_history_of_polish_jews. See also Nicholas Kulish’s comment in the New York Times, “Polish Museum Repairs a Tie to a Jewish Past,” April 18, 2013: “Clad in glass panels on the outside, the museum has a curved passageway inside that runs from front to back, almost like a natural canyon, which the building’s architect has compared to the parted Red Sea” and Nadine Epstein’s comment in “Preview of the Core Exhibition of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” Moment Magazine (September–October 2014): “The sand-colored undulating walls of the cavernous central hall symbolize the cracks in Polish–Jewish history.”

39 Unfortunately, the museum itself has done little to inform people about the building’s meaning. While the museum website includes many striking photos, it devotes little attention to the rationale behind the building’s architecture.

40 Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, “The Museum of the History of Polish Jews,” pp. 272–277.

41 See, for example, Winfried Nerdinger’s essays, “Bauhaus-Architekten im ‘Dritten Reich’” and “Modernisierung, Bauhaus, Nationalsozialismus,” in Winfried Nerdinger (ed.), Bauhaus-Moderne im Nationalsozialismus: Zwischen Anbiederung und Verfolgung (Munich: Prestel, 1993), pp. 153–178 and pp. 9–23.

42 “The Architects’ Debate: Architectural Discourse and the Memory of Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1977–1997,” in Geulie Ne’eman Arad (ed.), Passing into History: Nazism and the Holocaust Beyond Memory, special issue of History & Memory 9:1/2 (Fall 1997), pp. 189–225.

43 Charles Jencks, The Language of Postmodern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1977).

44 Arkkitehti, vol. 110, no. :4 (2013):, p. 18; Lahdelma and Mahlamäki, interview with MacKeith, p. 25. For his part, Mahlamäki did not appear overly concerned; in fact, when “told about the erotic connotations [of] the building … he found it an interesting new interpretation.”

45 William Whyte, “How Do Buildings Mean? Some Issues of Interpretation in the History of Architecture,” History and Theory 45 (2006), pp. 153–177; Robert Harbison, The Built, The Unbuilt, and the Unbuildable: In Pursuit of Architectural Meaning (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994); and Leland Roth, Understanding Architecture: Its Elements, History, and Meaning (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).

46 This trend has also been visible in the response to the minimalist design of recent Holocaust museums in Europe. The facade of staggered vertical slats at the Dachau visitors’ center, for instance, has been seen as evoking prison bars, despite being intended to represent a “wall of trees.”

47 Shelley Salamensky, “Poland’s Jews: Under a New Roof,” New York Review of Books, December 6, 2014.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gavriel D. Rosenfeld

Gavriel D. Rosenfeld is a professor of history at Fairfield University. He specializes in the history and memory of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He is the author of Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture (2015), Building after Auschwitz: Jewish Architecture and the Memory of the Holocaust (2011), The World Hitler Never Made: Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism (2005); and Munich and Memory: Architecture, Monuments and the Legacy of the Third Reich (2000). He is also the editor of What Ifs of Jewish History: From Abraham to Zionism (2016) and the co-editor of Beyond Berlin: Twelve German Cities Confront the Nazi Past (U. of Michigan, 2008).