The study presents the history of the rise and transformations of Neue Wache in Berlin: an ordinary guardhouse furnished with clear symbols (1818), a place of commemoration of soldiers who fell in the First World War (the period of the Weimar Republic and the Hitler regime), and a place of commemoration of the victims of 'fascism' (the GDR period), as well as a central place of commemoration of the victims of war and dictatorship in a unified German state (1933).
The article deals with the commemoration of central institutions of Nazi terror located in Berlin. The following issues are considered: history of the place, controversies over the creation of a documentation centre and a permanent exposition presenting Nazi institutions, persecution of the German opposition and the brutal occupation policy in European countries.
The article deals with the image of celebrations of Slovak National Uprising in the daily Pravda in the years 1945 – 1948. It deals with the analysis of propaganda in post war Czechoslovakia on the example of commemorating important historical event in Slovak history – Slovak National Uprising. It provides an overview and concept of celebration of the Slovak National Uprising in the early post war years. There is an analysis of the relationship of the German and Hungarian minorities in that period on the occasion of commemorating the Slovak National Uprising and the removal of democratic leaders from the Uprising image associated with preventing Democrats to participate in power. The aim of this article is to trace changes in the presentation of the Slovak National Uprising celebrations on the pages of the daily Pravda in the after war period, which were related to current political and social conditions and to bring information on how socialist propaganda used historical event Slovak National Uprising and its celebrations for extruding communist ideology.
The article deals with the history of trees growing in the area of former extermination camp in Belzec, since its establishment in 1941 until the opening of the Museum - Memorial Site in 2004. Using the notion of landscape, understood, after Simon Schama, as a cultural representation of nature, the author makes an attempt at reconstructing the camp and post-camp landscape. He subsequently proceeds to discussion of a new commemoration project for whose needs most of the trees were cut whilst only a few older oaks were assigned the role of witnesses. Referring to Giorgio Agamben's typology of witnesses, the author shows that trees offer an example of another type of witness. The notions used by the Italian philosopher preclude non-human forms of testimony and prevent understanding of what trees growing in Shoah venues are.
Official history at school manuals and in scientific publications presented by dominant group is very often questioned by minority groups. Their interpretation of bygone events usually based on oral history. They believed that history transmitted directly in group is more 'authentic', contrary to the official which is more ideological. I went through internet discussion concerning historical background of two neighboring groups. They live on South-West of country, but during the division of Poland in 1792 they were incorporated to different states. One of them - Silesians were included to Prussia, the other group to Russian Empire. The collective memory of these groups were formed in different circumstances and now descendant of these group recall history in different way. They also presented another attitudes toward official history. Nowadays, because of political reason, these groups live in one administration unit. In communist time, group of Russian background was the ruling one. Now Silesians are more influential in social life. What is interesting, both group used history in very instrumental way. The internet discussion shows how both group used their history to substantiate symbolic domination, how they invent their historical position. Discussion contains past events, commemoration of heroes (monuments, name of street), right to use dialect.
Referring to the concept of lieux de mémoire, developed by a French historian Pierre Nora, the author writes about practices commemorating the past and describes spaces subordinated to the function of commemoration. The area of her interests covers celebrations commemorating the events in Łódź on 29 August 1944. On that day, in Łódź (at that time – Litzmannstadt), the last transport of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto Jews left the Radegast Station for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Initially, the Radegast Station provided only cargo transport services for the ghetto, then it became a location from which Jews were transported to work outside the ghetto, and to which Jews from other places in Poland and Europe were moved. From this station during the year 1942 Jews were deported to the extermination centre in Chełmno on the Ner and since August 1944 – to the camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In total, Germans deported approximately 145.000 Jews. Together with the last transport, the Litzmannstadt Ghetto ceased to exist. The journey to the concentration camp on that August day was not only a tragedy experienced by hundreds of people crammed into cattle wagons, but also a symbolic date that put an end to the existence of the Łódź Jewish Community and Jewish local society which, before the outbreak of World War II, constituted one-third of the city population. In the article, the author explains why certain memorials are becoming the most important places of yearly commemorations of the Jews deported from the ghetto to death camps. She also discusses the meaning of practices connected with visiting lieux de mémoire.
The authoress discusses the institutionalization of the memory of the Warsaw Uprising as a process activated among other things due to its Museum opened in 2004. She presents how the museum contributes to the shaping of collective memory. She draws her conclusions from an analysis of programmatic and statute documents collected in the museum's archives. On this basis she describes the mission and message of the Museum, with a special focus on the interpretation given to the Warsaw Uprising by the authors of the museum's concept. She also presents how the contents to which they give preference are 'translated' into the museum's visual language as well as the architectural-visual plan of its permanent exhibition.
The article is a reflection on the social memory of the inhabitants of cultural borderlands. The text is based on the results of empirical studies carried out in the village of Purda Wielka in 1948 and 2005, and consists of three parts. Each part shows the mutual relations between the macro- and micro-cultural (macro- and micro-historical) perspective, describing how major social and historical events affected everyday life. Particular parts concern the following topics: 'everyday commemoration', forms of commemorating past events, and the impact of changes of the educational system on everyday life.
The past few years in Poland and, indeed, globally, have seen a shift from the predominance of traditional museums to the rise of multi-mediated, multi-sensory, and interactive “new” museums. However, in the midst of technological shifts in museum forms as well as broader social, cultural, and political changes, are the images of Poland and Polish culture and national identity, as presented in museums, also changing? If so, how, and what resources are being drawn on to construct new identities and/or reproduce old ones? I am currently engaged in a study of museums—conceptualized broadly to include traditional historical and cultural museums, cultural and historical centers, and online archives and virtual “memory sites—in contemporary Poland. My study focuses on one particular type of museum “publics”—those most involved with and interested in the museum process, the workers and volunteers. I am interested in which individuals comprise this form of the museum public in the case of historical and cultural museums in Poland, their motivations for becoming involved, and their role within museum practices more broadly. I hypothesize, first, that new museums understood as a sort of public “ritual” represent in part a means of addressing uncertainty over national identity; and secondly, that local/regional and transnational resources, in addition to national ones are increasingly being drawn on in both museum form and content in the process of constructing new public images of Poland, in part in dialogue with broader and more diff use audiences, but also that these new images coexist, at times uneasily, with familiar discourses of the nation.
Cultivation of the memory of the Poznan June of 1956 was banned in Polish People's Republic (PRL) for nearly twenty-five years after the bloody pacification of the rebellious city. The leadership of the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) realized that the protests of the Poznan workers subverted the sense of the existence of the co-called 'power of the people' and for a quarter of a century adopted the policy of eliminating the Poznan June from collective historical memory. The situation changed radically in autumn 1980 when the 'Solidarity' movement referred to the tradition of the first revolt of the society in PRL, a decision that could not leave PZPR passive. The article is an attempt to show the activity of PZPR in shaping the historical policy toward the Poznan June in the last decade of PRL. The following research questions served as starting points: Why did PZPR decide to 'reclaim' the Poznan June in the 1980's by giving it an adequately 'objective' character and including into the party calendar of commemorations of feasts and anniversaries? By what means did the Voivodship Committee (KW PZPR) intend to achieve this goal? To what extent were the political-propagandist initiatives of PZPR characterized by repeatability and to what extent were they used in the realization of short-term political goals?
This article aims to reflect on the meaning attributed to objects from the past in the contemporary transformations of memory. As the direct access to the past is not possible, objects are seen not only a link with the past, but they also acquire new references and meanings. In particular, the author is interested in two phenomena: on the one hand in an increasing interest in objects coming from the past with little or no artistic value and on the other hand in the tendency to transform some objects into symbols and consider them a kind of “lieux de mémoire”. The author examined thoroughly ways of inscribing those objects into the memory frame showing the cultural background of the phenomena. He also tried to answer a question whether we can really place our hopes in such objects and view them as reliable links with the past.
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