The national agents of transnational memory and their limits: the case of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk

ABSTRACT

This article examines the drivers and limiting factors of the transnationalisation of Second World War memory by focusing on the recently opened Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk. The creators of the museum presented it as an attempt to internationalise the memory of the conflict through the inclusion of East-Central European perspectives. The article contends that large parts of the exhibition foregrounded Polish narratives of the conflict. The exhibition reflected the intent of placing Polish (and through them East-Central European) perspectives at the centre of a broader transnational framework, and thus influence both the domestic and the international debate on the memory of the war. The article argues that the national agency from which the museum originated constituted the main limitation to the declared goal of providing a transnational narration of the war. This became particularly evident when the nationalist and conservative Law and Justice party rose to power in Warsaw and modified the structure of the museum. As part of a wider chauvinist memory politics, the new authorities weakened the transnational references in the exhibition and strengthened nationalist, Poland-centric narratives. The article concludes by arguing that national-level agency alone appears inadequate to sustain the transnationalisation of Second World War memory.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational memory
• Second World War
• memorial museum
• agents of memory
• Gdańsk
• Poland

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. While German acceptance of responsibility for Second World War crimes (as reiterated by Merkel in Gdańsk) followed a long-standing diplomatic practice, Putin’s condemnation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as immoral was a significant step for the reconciliation of official Polish and Russian perspectives on the conflict.

2. See the website of the Institute of National Remembrance, https://ipn.gov.pl/en/about-the-ipn/2,Institute-of-National-Remembrance-Commission-for-the-Prosecution-of-Crimes-again.html (accessed 25 March 2018).

3. Norman Davies was also involved in the creation of the HEH as a member of the museum’s Academic Committee.

4. See Davies’s official website http://www.normandavies.com/author/?lang=en (accessed 26 March 2018). Conversely, the work Davies was criticised by other historians, who accused him of downplaying issues such as Polish anti-Semitism. For a summary of some of these debates, see Lindsey, R. 1987. ‘Scholar says his views on Jews cost him a post at Stanford.’ The New York Times, March 13: 14.

5. Davies received the Order of the White Eagle in 2012, Poland’s highest civilian award. Snyder received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland in early 2015.

6. Cf. Website of the Museum of the Second World War, ‘Permanent exhibition,’ 30 October 2017. http://muzeum1939.pl/en/permanent-exhibition-about-exibition/840.html.

7. The online description of this narrative thread also reflects this approach – see ‘The road to war’, 30 September 2017. http://muzeum1939.pl/en/road-war/841.html.

8. Many of them co-signed an open letter criticising the legislation; see ‘Polish law denies reality of Holocaust,’ The Guardian, 5 February 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/05/polish-law-denies-reality-of-holocaust.

9. Most notably, in February 2016 the IPN released files apparently showing that Lech Wałęsa had cooperated with the secret police of the state socialist regime during the 1970s (Mazzini 2017).