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On the Peripheries of Memory: Tracing the History of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław’s Urban Imaginary
Author(s): Golden, Juliet D.; Cervinkova, Hana
Date: 2019
Topics: Cemeteries, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Memory, Post-1989, Jewish History, Jewish Heritage
Abstract: The Old Jewish Cemetery in Wrocław offers a unique perspective on the changing tectonics of memory construction in a Central European city. In this article, we trace the little known history of the cemetery and the ways in which its position in the urban imaginary changed in the context of large‐scale geopolitical transformations. Through the cemetery’s history, we can follow the fate of one of the most prominent Jewish communities in pre‐World War II Germany, starting with its emergence following the emancipation of German Jews in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to its demise under Nazi rule. After the city’s transfer to Poland following the Potsdam Conference (1945), the cemetery became an increasingly isolated relic of the Jewish past of the city until its grassroots‐led revitalization commencing during the 1980s Solidarity era. After this important period of civic‐led renaissance tied to the city’s Jewish heritage, today, the cemetery has been pushed again to the periphery, an outcome of a process we refer to as the policy of memory containment.
Remembering and Belonging: Jewish Heritage and Civic Agency in Poland's Haunted Urban Spaces
Author(s): Cervinkova, Hana; Golden, Juliet D.
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Culture and Heritage, Jewish Heritage, Jewish Culture, Cities and Suburbs, Nationalism
Abstract: In the context of Poland’s recent illiberal turn, large cities have been important stages where the fault lines of the
national imaginary that run through Polish society have become apparent. In this article, based on ethnographic
research in the Polish city of Wroclaw, we focus on individual cultural agents who have engaged with the
marginalised Jewish heritage of the city in constructing diverse imaginaries of urban belonging. Their work, carried
out against the backdrop of exclusionary nationalist agenda of the Polish state, illuminates the power of human
agency to harness cultural heritage as a social and political resource for the present. We show how through their
urban-based practices, these cultural agents challenge the Polish hegemonic heritage discourses that exclude the
Other from the national imaginary.