Abstract: The authors of this text, two Israeli historians, probe the background to the keynote speech delivered by Thomas Rose, the US ambassador to Poland, at the conference of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Judges in Warsaw in November 2025. The newly appointed envoy—a Republican political appointee and former publisher of The Jerusalem Post—insisted that claims of any Polish complicity in the German annihilation of Polish Jewry amount to a “blood libel.” In Contrast, Dreifuss and Weinbaum contend that these remarks serve to reinforce ongoing efforts by individuals and Polish officialdom to delegitimize the rigorous scholarship of a determined band of Polish researchers who have been studying wartime Polish–Jewish relations for nearly three decades. While condemning the occasional conflation of Poles with the actual masterminds and prime perpetrators of the Final Solution, the authors emphasize that local participation in the degradation, dispossession, and destruction of Polish Jews was far more extensive than had been previously recognized. They further argue that both Communist and post-Communist governments, as well as Polish individuals and institutions at home and in exile, have resisted confronting these findings and that scholars and others who challenge more reassuring narratives have faced sustained and often vitriolic attacks. The authors conclude that this excruciating chapter of history must be confronted dispassionately—on the basis of meticulous scholarly inquiry—and should not be subordinated to diplomatic or political agendas.
Abstract: Открытый в апреле 2013 г. в Варшаве Музей истории польских евреев «Полин» рассказывает о тысячелетии постоянного еврейского присутствия в этой части мира, об истории, которая омрачена Холокостом. Музейная экспозиция избегает менторского повествования, она представляет собой театр истории, основанный на 12 метаисторических принципах. В этой статье излагаются кураторские, образовательные и перформативные стратегии представления истории в работе над этой мультимедийной выставкой, позволяющие включить в экспозицию самый важный период в истории польских евреев – тысячу лет. Евреи являются неотъемлемой чаcтью истории Польши. Это история сосуществования и конфликта, сотрудничества и конкуренции, разделения и интеграции. Польские евреи создали, по выражению Моше Росмана, «категорически еврейскую, явно польскую» цивилизацию, стали крупнейшей еврейской общиной в мире и центром еврейского мира. Рассказывать об истории в том самом месте, где она происходила, значит использовать эмоциональную мощь этого места. Нарративная стратегия – показ истории с помощью фрагментов первоисточников, относящихся исключительно к данному историческому периоду, – направлена на то, чтобы избежать восприятия многовековой истории через призму Холокоста.
Abstract: Представленное в статье исследование посвящено репрезентации памяти о Холокосте в медиа Центрально-Восточной и Северной Европы во втором десятилетии XXI века (на примере Германии, Австрии, Польши, Литвы, Латвии, Эстонии, Швеции, Дании, Норвегии). В соответствии с гипотезой авторов, в каждом из этих государств существует особая память о Второй мировой войне, которая встраивается в национальные нарративы, но сочетается с глобальной памятью о Холокосте (механизм, ранее описанный Д. Леви и Н. Шнайдером). Сравнение образа Холокоста в различных публикациях СМИ позволило выяснить общие интерпретации и национальную специфику нарратива о трагедии, уточнить его значение для разных социальных групп. Целью исследования стало выявление особенностей сочетания глобальной и локальной памяти о Холокосте в Центрально-Восточной и Северной Европе в 2010-е гг. Источниками исследования являются отобранные по ключевым словам материалы СМИ 2011, 2018 и 2020 гг. Методологическую основу работы составляет концепция «мест памяти» П. Нора и развивающая ее концепция «общих мест памяти» в интерпретации Р. Трабы, через призму которой можно рассматривать память о Холокосте в различных национальных контекстах, а также дискурс-анализ (в соответствии с подходом Э. Лаклау и Ш. Муфф). В результате исследования было определено, что память о Холокосте играет большую роль для национальных нарративов. Она встраивается в цепочки эквивалентности с другими событиями локальной и всемирной истории, сопоставляется с геноцидами других народов. Через дискурс о Холокосте происходит формирование представлений о Второй мировой войне и праворадикальных движениях. При этом в публикациях проявляется и глобальная память о Холокосте, противодействие его релятивизации. Эта последняя тенденция связана прежде всего с деятельностью переживших Холокост граждан самих рассматриваемых в работе стран.
Abstract: The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum received two million visitors in 2019, making it the most heavily visited museum in Poland. This entry situates tourism at Auschwitz within the broader context of Holocaust tourism by providing an historical account of the phenomenon. It begins with those visitors to the camp before 1945 who were not tourists (Nazi officials, local suppliers, engineers), drawing attention to tourism’s ethical ambiguity. Since the museum’s 1947 opening, tourists have encountered a site undergoing continual development, its exhibition spaces and its messaging evolving from the Stalinist era through the Cold War to the present period. This chapter considers how shifts in the site’s memory politics, especially regarding the representation of different victim groups, have led to unresolved tensions that still surface during the tour. It then considers some present-day challenges to the legitimacy of tourism at Auschwitz, such as visitor behaviour or the difficulties in providing an appropriate, authentic, and informative experience to large crowds. Finally, the chapter reviews different scholarly approaches to Holocaust tourism, such as dark tourism theory and empirical visitor research, before concluding with questions for future research into Auschwitz tourism.
Abstract: The chapter addresses the key problem of Polish collective memory of Auschwitz, that is, how Poles perceive the former camp, in a wider context of Polish memory of World War II, Nazi camps, and the Holocaust. It presents and discusses results of surveys representative of Poland’s population, particularly two designed by the authors and conducted in 2020. The surveys show that the war is the major theme of Polish collective memory, and Nazi camps in general and Auschwitz in particular belong to top Polish lieux de mémoire. Auschwitz evokes in Poles mostly general and universalist associations with destruction, murder, crematoria, gas chambers, and death. The Holocaust is spontaneously associated with Auschwitz only rarely. On the other hand, the camp is the most frequently associated site of the destruction of Jews. The Polish collective memory of Auschwitz hinges upon a poor awareness of the number, nationality, and countries of origin of the camp’s victims. However, Poles are aware of the major historical functions of the camp and share different symbolic meanings of it. Some survey results suggest that a cosmopolitan Holocaust memory focusing on Auschwitz developed among Poles while others indicate that the Polish memory of Auschwitz has nationalist characteristics.
Abstract: This article examines how rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust are represented in the Polish elementary school core curriculum and history textbooks, offering a critical assessment of the current approach to Holocaust education in Poland.
The inclusion of the Holocaust as a distinct educational topic in schools in Poland is a relatively recent development, marking a shift from earlier decades when it was marginalized or instrumentalized for political purposes. The article traces the evolution of Holocaust education in Poland and highlights the changes introduced after the 2015 parliamentary elections, when the Law and Justice (PiS) government, within its historical policy, began emphasizing Poland’s ‘heroic past’ and the rescue of Jews. This narrative, the authors argue, risks overshadowing the complexities of Polish–Jewish relations during World War II. Trojański and Szuchta demonstrate that current curricula and textbooks often present a simplified, hero-centered narrative that neglects the broader historical context, including collaboration, blackmail, and violence against Jews. Such omissions contradict recent scholarship and hinder the ability of students to understand the multifaceted nature of the Holocaust. Because elementary school materials shape foundational historical knowledge, this imbalance has lasting implications. Finally, the article briefly notes the early steps taken by the new government to broaden the historical framework, but emphasizes that meaningful change will require time, resources, and careful revision of teaching materials.
Abstract: This article examines how local complicity in the Holocaust is negotiated, silenced, and revealed through the spatial memoryscape of Rajgród, a small town in northeastern Poland where Poles participated in the murder of their Jewish neighbors in the summer of 1941. Using a microhistorical lens, it analyzes how knowledge, denial, and memory are inscribed in physical spaces and communal practices, rendering space a cultural text. Drawing on personal and municipal records and ethnographic fieldwork, the article shows how Catholicism, nationalism, and ritual symbolism shape collective remembrance and moral hierarchies of suffering in post-socialist Eastern Europe.
Abstract: The past is never past, wrote William Faulkner. The great American writer had in mind his native Mississippi, but he might as well have written those words about Poland. Indeed, among history-conscious Poles, the findings of historians have had far-reaching social and political consequences that transcend the esoteric discussions of scholars. This was corroborated in recent times by the emergence of a discourse in Poland over what some have called polityka historyczna (Geschichtspolitik, or history policy), which focuses on the question of whether historians who write of the less glorious episodes in Polish history are actually acting against the interests of the nation. Many Polish historians, including the best-known scholars among them, have protested against this suggestion, which poses a clear danger to the fidelity of their discipline. The dissolution of the Communist regime in Poland at the end of the 1980s made possible the deconstruction of every aspect of contemporary history. The process of reconstruction, begun in earnest, proved to be complex and painful. This was particularly the case when dealing with the bitterest chapters in the millennial story of Polish-Jewish relations, which were, and continue to be, the subject of popular and intellectual discussion as well as serious scholarly research. Out of this process emerged a new understanding of history, one that renders much of the earlier canon on the topic virtually obsolete. It had, in fact, been under way for some years even before the collapse of Communism – especially in the pages of Poland’s extraordinarily vibrant underground press and also, to an impressive extent given the prevailing censorship, in those of Poland’s legally operated independent Catholic press. Polish émigré journals were also regularly smuggled into Poland and had significant influence. Nevertheless, it was only with the collapse of the old regime and the birth of Poland’s Third Republic that this activity could be carried out without interference and Poland could finally undergo its own Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past). This chapter discusses the evolution of Poland’s confrontation with the destruction of Polish Jewry.
Abstract: Gdańsk with its multinational past, a thriving Jewish community in the prewar period, the history of the November pogrom and Kindertransporten, and a small, yet rather active Jewish community in the twenty-first century is an example of an attempt at refocusing the memory of the Jewish presence by demarginalising it: just like the Jewish merchants were finally allowed to settle within the city walls in the nineteenth century, the memory of the Jewish history – and presence – might be reconstructed, reconceptualized and redefined both via fleeting actions (walks, performances or barely visible sgraffito), the official educational programmes, state policy, and other memory practices, to mention only a popular Jewish culture festival Zbliżenia, organized in Gdańsk since 2013. Thus, as Kapralski (2017, p. 172) states, “[m]emoryscapes form a matrix of possible attitudes towards the past that can be activated in the commemorative actions of individuals and groups”.
Abstract: While public antisemitism after 7 October prominently features references to Israel, forms of Holocaust denial and distortion remain very relevant and are deeply intertwined with other forms of antisemitism.
Acts and manifestations of Holocaust denial and distortion appear in various forms and are adopted by different milieus and groups to serve their own political or religious agenda, regardless of societal and country-specific context.
Our publication „Holocaust Distortion in Europe“ examines the alarming prevalence of Holocaust denial and distortion in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Poland; demonstrating how antisemitic narratives adapt to societal crises, are exploited for political gain, often evade legal accountability, erode historical truth—with harmful consequences for Jewish communities, Holocaust survivors, and their descendants—and highlights the urgent need for coordinated action.
Abstract: Virtual reality and augmented reality experiences play an increasingly significant role in Holocaust memory and education as professional memory institutions continue to explore the affordances of integrating digital technologies into visitor and user experience. There is a rapidly expanding list of projects experimenting with cinematic virtual reality, photogrammetry, digital mapping, 3D modelling, 360-degree on-location survivor testimony as well as a growing portfolio of augmented and mixed reality mobile and tablet applications.
Principally being implemented as spatial technologies, several memorial sites and museums are exploring the possibilities of creating 3D graphic reconstructions of former sites of Nazi persecution in AR/VR such as the digital reconstruction of Falstad Concentration Camp, the Here: Spaces for Memory App at the Bergen-Belsen Memorial Site, the Sobibor AR exhibit, the project Auschwitz VR as well as the 360-degrees-walks at Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Going further, some digital initiatives are using VR/AR/MR technologies to zoom in on historical documents, testimonies and artefacts, notable projects include the ARt AR App at the Dachau Memorial Site and Museum which revivifies historical and contemporary drawings and paintings in-situ at the present-day site, the Anne Frank House VR which invites visitors to navigate the annex through a series of digital objects, and The Last Goodbye VR experience which foregrounds survivor testimony within Majdanek, the similarly survivor-driven Walk with Me at The Melbourne Holocaust Museum and numerous films that shape the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center’s The Journey Back exhibition space.
While it is important to note that VR technology is not new and has existed for more than 30 years, it is only recently that the technology has become more widely accessible in the heritage and museum sectors (in part, due to the affordability of headsets and devices in the domestic market). The proliferation of VR and AR projects within the sector, then, raises critical questions regards the opportunities for digital Holocaust memory practice and education while also bringing to the fore issues of curation, contextualisation, visitor experience and accessibility.
This report serves as an important first step in this work. It was created as part of the research project ‘Participatory Workshops – Co-Designing Standards for Digital Interventions in Holocaust Memory and Education’, which is one thread of the larger Digital Holocaust Memory Project at the University of Sussex. The participatory workshops project have focused on six themes, each of which brought together a different range of expertise to discuss current challenges and consider possible recommendations for the future.
The themes were:
AI and machine learning
Digitising material evidence
Recording, recirculating and remixing testimony
Social media
Virtual memoryscapes
Computer games
Abstract: This article explores the ways in which oral testimonies of Jewish survivors allow a critical reflection on the understanding of gratitude as a social emotion in the context of hiding under German occupation in Poland. Examined alongside oral interviews with non-Jewish rescuers and helpers, these testimonies unveil the social hierarchy between the non-Jewish majority and the Jewish minority. Consequently, the article scrutinizes the topoi of ‘an ungrateful Jew’ within the context of the Polish public sphere which excludes Jewish narratives, experiences, and memories. Based on oral history interviews and in-depth individual interviews with Jewish survivors, rescuers, and helpers, their descendants, as well as residents of two Polish towns in the Lublin area, Biłgoraj and Izbica, the article presents two case studies of rescue and survival. The analysis investigates the narratives, cultural norms involved, and the underlying power dynamics between rescuers or helpers and Jewish individuals.
Abstract: The article discusses the development of the symbolic meanings of Auschwitz in Poland since the end of the Second World War, taking into account the context of Polish history and memory, in particular the memory of the Holocaust and disputes surrounding it. Analyzing various kinds of representations, the article examines chronologically the major symbolisms of the former camp – Polish, international, universalist, and Jewish – as well as pointing to others, and identifying the periods of their development. The article argues that Auschwitz has had various meanings in Poland. At present, it is, among others, a symbol of the Holocaust, but not the symbol thereof.
Abstract: The research examines changes in online antisemitic narratives following the Hamas terror attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war. These events led to a rise in antisemitism across Europe, underscoring the need to analyze how antisemitic narratives evolved online.
Conducted simultaneously in Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Romania using a unified methodology, the study focused on online textual content, including articles, comments, and Facebook posts. It analyzed content from 1–15 April in both 2023 and 2024, reviewing nearly 7,000 pieces per country. The research methodology and categories were finalised in late 2023 and early 2024, with data collection beginning in spring 2024. The final report was completed in December 2024.
The research was based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by 43 countries and several international organizations, including the EU and most of its member states.
Abstract: The research examines changes in online antisemitic narratives following the Hamas terror attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent war. These events led to a rise in antisemitism across Europe, underscoring the need to analyze how antisemitic narratives evolved online.
Conducted simultaneously in Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Romania using a unified methodology, the study focused on online textual content, including articles, comments, and Facebook posts. It analyzed content from 1–15 April in both 2023 and 2024, reviewing nearly 7,000 pieces per country. The research methodology and categories were finalised in late 2023 and early 2024, with data collection beginning in spring 2024. The final report was completed in December 2024.
The research was based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by 43 countries and several international organizations, including the EU and most of its member states.
Abstract: Antisemitism is still a significant problem in Polish society. This is the conclusion that emerges from the quantitative data from previous years and the statements of our interviewees.
Within the Jewish community, members often report encountering antisemitism in the form of unsavoury jokes and stereotypes rather than overt discrimination. However, conversations around the Holocaust and Polish-Jewish history frequently lead to antisemitic stereotypes and hate speech. Interestingly, the Holocaust is often the subject of jokes. This may be attributable to the perception of Jews as a historical minority who once lived in Poland.
In educational settings, courses on the Jewish community are overwhelmingly historical, primarily focusing on World War II. Almost all respondents, except non-Jewish youth, agree that contemporary Jewish topics are seldom covered in schools. This gap in multicultural education has led to a lack of understanding about nondiscrimination and minority-related issues across various age groups in Polish society.
While younger generations appear to be more tolerant toward minorities and more open to learning about them, the term "Jew" is still reportedly used as an insult among them. Discrimination is not limited to the Jewish community; focus group respondents also identified Ukrainians, Roma, people of colour, and the LGBTQ+ community as other discriminated groups. Despite the majority of focus group participants being women, only one person in each group cited women as a discriminated-against minority.
Abstract: This chapter seeks to analyse the entanglement of exclusionist ideas in antisemitic and anti-feminist thought in Poland and Europe from the late nineteenth century to the present day. It will consider discriminatory politics, practices, and violence against women, Jews, and other groups that were perceived as ‘Other’, drawing on cases from Germany, Poland, and Hungary in a comparative approach. Since connections between exclusion, sexuality, and violence during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries are currently undergoing reinterpretation, the chapter will also examine developments and examples of anti-gender ideology and right-wing populism in contemporary Poland and Europe and discuss the dangers such shared forms of ressentiment pose to democracy.
