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Disputed Memory: Jewish Past, Polish Remembrance
Author(s): Steffen, Katrin
Date: 2008
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Jewish Heritage, Antisemitism, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Commemoration
Abstract: Before the Second World War, over 3 million Jews lived in Poland. Almost all of them were killed during the Shoah. The Communist regime forbade commemoration of the Jews as a special group of victims. That has changed since 1990, but remembrance of the Jews still polarises Polish society. That is shown by the debate over Jedwabne and the postwar pogroms. There exists a competition of victims between Jews and Poles. A mythological and symbolic figure of “the Jew” is still at work in Polish memory. Moreover, a “virtual Jewry” has come into being at former sites of Jewish life.