http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7741-9756
![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
New historiography of the Holocaust, revealing the dark pages of national histories, stained with the facts of group and individual collaboration with Nazi Germany, makes the Polish state (like some others: Ukraine, Baltic states, Hungary), national groups, and individuals, feel uncomfortable. Disparities have grown between Holocaust research and education elsewhere but it was only Poland that passed a law which attempted to redefine Polish collective identity with reference to attitudes toward Jews during the Holocaust. This article investigates challenges of education about the Holocaust in Poland, including post-1989 strategies and initiatives in the context of post-memory of the Shoah.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Dr Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs teaches at the UNESCO Chair for Education about the Holocaust at the Institute for European Studies at the Jagiellonian University (JU) and between 2008 and 2017 was the Director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the JU. She was 2011/2012 Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and earlier a Pew Fellow at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University.
ORCID
Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7741-9756
Notes
1. Rezvani, La Traversee des Monts Noirs, 264; after Todorov, “The Abuses of Memory,” 23.
2. Kranz, Edukacja historyczna, 104.
3. The study consisted of a survey of ministries, a separate survey carried out in 22 museums, memorial sites and non-governmental institutions, focus group interviews with 118 teachers and students in 9 selected EU member states, on-site visits with participant observation in 12 locations and historical museums as well as individual interviews with guides and experts in pedagogy. Multiple methodologies allowed the expectations of students to be compared with the goals of educators and guides to reveal the determinants of the impact of visits on students and to examine whether they are taken into consideration by the social agents of the museum and memorial site. The research included an analysis of the literature on teaching about the Holocaust and human rights education at museums and memorial sites. See: Discover the past for the future, 2010.
4. Most (Polish) Jews in pre-war Poland were Polish citizens and are distinguished from the gentiles, ethnic Poles in this text with the intention of clarifying majority-minority attitudes during and after the Holocaust.
5. Webber, “Making sense of the Holocaust,” 7.
6. See: Puławski, W obliczu Zagłady. Rząd RP.
7. Todorov, “The Abuses of Memory,” 10.
8. Ibid. 8, 14; Vidal-Naquet, “Memory and History,” 15.
9. Ricoeur, “Nadużycia pamięci naturalnej,” 260–62.
10. Michlic, “Coming to Terms with the ‘Dark Past’,” 3.
11. Schwab, Haunting Legacies. Violent Histories, 22.
12. Ibid., 22–3.
13. Krajewski, Poland and the Jews, 65–6.
14. 27 July 2018.
15. Forecki, Od Shoah do strachu, 112.
16. Szuchta, From Silence to Reconstruction, 305.
17. Kapralski, “Żydzi i zagłada w polskich kulturach pamięci,” 350–51.
18. KL Auschwitz-Birkenau was put on the list of the UNESCO World Heritage in 1979.
19. Błoński, “Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto” [“The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto”].
20. Lipski, “Dwie Ojczyzny, Dwa Patriotyzmy. Uwagi o megalomanii.”
21. After screening parts of the film on Polish TV in October 1985, including the official letter of protest to the French government after the screening of the film for the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (PZPR).
22. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, 127–9.
23. Szuchta, From Silence to Reconstruction, 307.
24. Program nauczania dla szkoły podstawowej.
25. Ibid.
26. Program nauczania dla liceum ogólnokształcącego.
27. Węgrzynek, “The presentation of the Holocaust,” 685–717.
28. Cichy, Przepraszam powstańców, 16.
29. Tematyka żydowska w podręcznikach szkolnych.
30. This state institution, established by Parliamentary legislation in 1998 through a consensus of the majority of Polish political forces, has objectives including the investigation of Nazi and communist crimes. It has undergone a process of political change dependent on the ruling party.
31. See: the result of the work of 30 researchers, historians and lawyers in the two volume “Wokół Jedwabnego” ed. by Paweł Machcewicz and Krzysztof Persak. The report lists 32 Jewish testimonies in reference to persecutions in 22 localities and presents documents from 61 investigations and trials against 93 Poles accused of mass crimes in 23 towns and villages. Polish historian Andrzej Żbikowski revealed 67 localities similar to Jedwabne where Christians murdered their Jewish neighbors.
32. Scislowska, “Polish Bishops Pray in Apology”.
33. The IPN investigation was conducted from 2000 and the report from 23 June 2003 stated, after the interrogation of 111 witnesses, that no new living perpetrators were found than those sentenced by the trials of 1949–1950 and the investigation was discontinued.
34. TNS OBOP, “Efekt Strachu.” http://tnsglobal.pl/archiv_files/K.025-08_Efekt_Strachu_O04a08.pdf, 12 August 2018.
35. Jaworska, Olechowski, Bilewicz, “Ludobójstwo i jego,”, 73–4.
36. Ibid.
37. Bartuś, “Młodzi o Auschwitz nie wiedzą nic.”
38. Confirmed by Robert Szuchta, a leading expert on education about the Holocaust in Poland, in conversation with the author in July 2018.
39. Nijakowski, Polska polityka pamięci, 133.
40. Ibid.,19.
41. Consisting of 7 episodes the film “Sprawiedliwi” (The Righteous) (2009) was directed by Waldemar Krzystek. A documentary film about the Ulma family with five fictional scenes was produced by TV Łańcut in 2016. Rafał Wieczyński is directing the film “Spójrz mi w oczy” (Look into my Eyes) (2018) about Ulm and Goldman families from Markowa.
42. Bukowski, Jankowski, Żaryn, Wokół pogromu kieleckiego, 520.
43. Polish officials rapped for perceived revisionism.
44. Witkowska and Bilewicz, “Czy prawda nas wyzwoli?” 803–22.
45. Bilewicz and Jaworska, “Reconciliation through the Righteous,” 162–79.
46. Libionka, “Polskie piśmiennictwo,” 17–80.
47. Grabowski and Libionka, “Bezdroża polityki historycznej.”
48. International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (Ed.), Research in Teaching, Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, “Combining History Learning,” 138–66.
49. See, for example: Grabowski, Hunt for the Jews; Grabowski, Rescue for Money.
50. The Standpoint of Polish Scholars Affiliated with the Polish League.
51. In Defence of Jan Grabowski's Good Name.
52. Maltz, Israeli Survivors Respond to Polish Legislation.
53. Museum Statement on Holocaust Legislation.
54. Museum Statement on Amendment to Poland’s Act.
56. New curricular framework [1 February 2018].
57. Szuchta, “Tematyka Holokaustu w najnowszych.”
58. Szuchta, Trojański, Holocaust. Program nauczania.
59. Szuchta, Trojański, Holokaust. Zrozumieć dlaczego.
60. Pamięć. Historia Żydów polskich.
61. Auschwitz. Pamięć dla przyszłości.
62. Studia z dziejów Żydów w Polsce.
63. Trojański, Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, Oleksy, Jak uczyć o Auschwitz i Holokauście.
64. Engelking, Such a Beautiful Sunny Day; Grabowski, and Libionka, “Bezdroża polityki historycznej”; Grabowski, Hunt for the Jews; Grabowski, Rescue for Money.
65. Tec, Dry Tears, 129–30.
66. Engelking, Such a Beautiful Sunny Day.
67. Rozporządzenie Ministra Edukacji Narodowej.
68. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs and Szuchta, “The Intricacies of Education about the Holocaust,” 283–99.
69. Recommendation Rec(2001)15.
70. Kranz, Edukacja historyczna, 110–11.
71. http://www.filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php?film=4220243 (14 August 2018).
72. Kucia, “KL Auschwitz w percepcji polskich uczniów,” 99–108.
73. http://dzieje.pl/wideo/prof-j-leociak-treblinke-z-zaglada-zydow-kojarzy-zaledwie-138-proc-polakow (23 July 2017).
74. Stec, Współczesny młody Polak.
75. Kucia, “Polacy wobec Auschwitz,” 33–4.
76. Bilewicz, “Wyjaśnianie Jedwabnego.”
77. Anderson, Imagined Communities.