Abstract: The Holocaust monuments in Poland commemorate this historical event in the place of its occurrence. This empowers the commemoration, its meanings, and messages. However, the monuments also reflect the way the Polish state’s collective memory consolidates over the years. The memory of the glorious and significant Jewish past in Poland is in the form of ruined synagogues, displaced or neglected gravestones in cemeteries, warehouses full of relics, and ruins of concentration and extermination camps. The memory of this Jewish past remained in the hands of the Poles and became part of the Polish national landscape. One of the ways to commemorate the magnificent and rich Jewish past, the way the Jewish communities were destroyed, and the community members were murdered, is through monuments. Holocaust monuments in Poland were erected right after War World II and continue to be constructed until the present. What is the character of the commemoration presented in the monuments, Polish, Jewish, or universal? Which themes are commemorated, and which artistic expressions were chosen for this purpose? In this chapter, I will discuss Holocaust monuments erected in Poland through the years with tombstones, at the event sites, and former concentration camp sites, addressing their historiographical context, and the variety of visual expressions.
