• 1 This article was supported by the National Science Center, Poland, under the research project “New (...)

1The boom in museums which Poland has been experiencing since the turn of the millennium offers a significant opportunity to regard the dynamic museal landscape as an observation field for memory studies. The boom concerns historical museums in particular; multiple newly opened or reopened institutions of this kind offer spectacular exhibitions, express a variety of mnemonic agendas, and powerfully influence remembrance patterns and visions of the past. They can thus serve as touchstones of Polish memory culture and its recent developments.

• 2 Twenty Years After Communism. The Politics of Memory and Commemoration, ed. Michael Bernhard and Ja (...)
• 3 Maria Mälksoo, “‘Memory Must Be Defended’: Beyond the Politics of Mnemonical Security,” Security Di (...)

2Although museums’ messages are not limited to the articulation of national memory politics being fostered by the “mnemonic warriors” allied with the right-wing government,2 especially those which are state-sponsored institutions often, and understandably, tend towards “mnemonical security.”3 In terms of exhibitions, this means offering narratives and experiences that promise to secure an already established positive self-image and self-memory of the national community and therefore aim to guarantee its stable identity. It can be said that such museums contribute to developing the nation’s infrastructure for self-affirmative remembering. Self-affirmation of this kind can be founded on multiple, intertwined narrative schemes (typically, of heroism and the utmost patriotic merits on the one hand, and of suffering and martyrdom on the other) and works to generate a sense of dignity and remove any possible doubts concerning this dignified self-image.

• 4 See, for instance, Tomasz Żukowski Wielki retusz. Jak zapomnieliśmy, że Polacy zabijali Żydów [The (...)
• 5 Alina Molisak, “Sprawiedliwi w kaplicy” [The Righteous in the chapel], in Pomniki pamięci. Miejsca (...)

3Polish self-affirmative memory unfolds in various contexts, concerning in particular – but of course not limited to – narratives of resistance in the times of the breakthroughs of twentieth-century history. Amongst many themes that support this kind of memory, a particular version of the discourse on the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust intensified in Polish memory culture at roughly the same time as the museum boom was developing (although its roots date back to the 1940s, as researchers have shown4). Within this discourse, the histories of the rescue overshadow, if not substitute for, the Holocaust as such, moving the focus from Jewish suffering towards the heroism of Polish rescuers. Typically, the discourse in question also moves towards a formula of “Poles saving Jews” rather than the “Righteous Among the Nations,”5 relaxing the criteria for inclusion in the group and stressing the rescuers’ national identity. By this means, remembrance of rescuers, indispensable as it is, is also being used to ensure precise management – or concealing – of the difficult past. In historical reality, Poles assumed various stances towards the Holocaust, including indifference, but also facilitation of the Nazi persecution of Jews; the issue of complicity of some Poles is then inseparable from the memory of the benevolence, and heroism, of others. However, the latter often serves as a national alibi.

• 6 See “Naukowcy i naukowczynie w obronie prof. Engelking: ‘Niebezpieczne i niedopuszczalne zapędy cen (...)

4In the most articulate cases of the discourse, commemoration of the rescue therefore comes close to historical distortion. Nevertheless, it is a vital element of the “mnemonic warriors’” historical policies, and recent examples of violation of freedom of research on the Holocaust highlight the topic’s importance for these mnemonic actors. It was precisely the public breach of the rules of the discourse, in which Poles are generally associated with the rescue and never with the complicity, that resulted in unprecedented attacks on Barbara Engelking.6

• 7 Michael Rothberg, Multidirectional Memory. Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization ( (...)
• 8 Erica Lehrer, “Material Kin: ‘Communities of Implication’ in Post-colonial, Post-Holocaust Polish E (...)
• 9 On the concept of implication see Michael Rothberg, The Implicated Subject. Beyond Victims and Perp (...)

5The mnemonic tendencies discussed here seem in line with the more general framework of Polish memory concerning the Polish and Jewish past, which can be seen as an example of what Michael Rothberg identifies as “competitive memory”: memory culture perceived as a battlefield, on which distinct and separate groups compete for limited resources – such as attention, justice, satisfaction, reparation, commemoration or recognition.7 As a result of this “competition,” Holocaust topics have been persistently obscured in the Polish memory by the suffering of the Poles; when museums are concerned, this is clearly visible in the context of appropriation of Jewish heritage.8 The framework hinders the possibility to move beyond self-affirmation and embrace a more complicated memory of the past (including Polish community being implicated in past violence and injustices9). It does not mean that this possibility is blocked as such; as the examples will show, in Polish memory culture there is a space for a more nuanced, critical approach. Yet the conditions of Polish “mnemonical security” discussed above may significantly limit the power and influence of such projects, for which it will be more difficult to get a positive public reception (not to mention funding or patronages).

• 10 Zofia Wóycicka has comprehensively analyzed Polish and European museums dedicated specifically to t (...)

6I argue that, given the circumstances discussed, both museum research and study of remembrance of the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust offer particularly useful viewpoints for observing Polish memory culture. New historical museums, understood as mnemonic infrastructure in development, test possible ways of remembering, both supporting established memory forms and negotiating with the default mnemonic standard. The topic of the rescue of Jews, sensitive and prone to problematic formulations, is in turn a litmus test of self-affirmative Polish memory. Overlapped, the two perspectives create a particularly sensitive research area. Along these lines, it was my goal to examine the ways in which the topic of the wartime rescue of Jews by Poles is presented in five historical museums opened in Poland within last two decades: the Warsaw Rising Museum (opened in 2004 in Warsaw), Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory (2010, Krakow, a branch of the Museum of Krakow), POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews (2014, Warsaw), the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War Two (2016, Markowa) and the Museum of the Second World War (2017, Gdańsk).10 Rather than making an institutional analysis of the museums, I focus closely on their permanent exhibitions. Taking into account the design and narratives and the use of media in the respective displays concerning the rescue of Jews, I analyze them in the context of their positioning and function in the whole exhibitions. These five cases, juxtaposed, allow several mnemonic strategies in question to be distinguished, and, eventually, reveal various paths that self-affirmative memory can take, but also challenge simplistic perceptions of memory culture.

• 11 Wóycicka, “A Global Label”; for an overview of the museum: “Global Patterns,” 251–252; for an analy (...)
• 12 Jan Grabowski and Dariusz Libionka, “Bezdroża polityki historycznej. Wokół Markowej, czyli o czym n (...)
• 13 See Alicja Podbielska, “Święta rodzina z Markowej: kult Ulmów i polityka historyczna” [The Holy fam (...)

10The Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in Markowa could also serve as a clear example of this, while also showing a more complex version of the strategy. The museum’s particular position within the Polish museal landscape has already been described by researchers.11 The only one of the “new museums” located outside of a big city, it makes the local history only a starting point for an ambitious, yet highly controversial narrative12 that adheres to the “mnemonic warriors’” historical policy in an unparalleled way. All members of the Ulma family, including the children, were murdered in 1944 together with the Jews whom they were trying to hide in their house in the village of Markowa. In 1995, the Ulmas were honored as Righteous Among the Nations, and in September 2023 they were beatified by the Catholic Church. In recent years, they have been promoted as symbolic representatives of all helpers and become remembrance icons of the discourse on the rescue of Jews, governed by principles of self-affirmation and mnemonical security.13

• 14 The Ulma Family Museum was researched within the project “New Polish historical museums” by Sara He (...)
• 15 Maria Kobielska, “The Touchstone of Polishness? Suffering Exhibited in ‘New Museums’ in Poland,” Th (...)

11The museum’s exhibition is strategically organized to serve the discourse in question in several important steps.14 Firstly, the exhibition narrative focuses consistently on Polish rescuers and not on the persecuted Jews whom they were helping. In the Ulmas’ case, this may be illustrated in a nutshell by the fact that a life-sized, walk-in mock-up of their house, featuring some furniture, family souvenirs and so on, does not include an attic, where the hiding place was located. The exhibition design encourages the visitors to assume the Ulmas’ perspective and put themselves in their position, while the Jews in hiding remain almost anonymous (the names of the Goldmans, Grünfelds and Didners are barely mentioned). As I have argued elsewhere,15 Jewish trauma appears here somewhat for the sake of Polish heroism, as a necessary context – and not in its own right.

• 16 Wóycicka, “A Global Label,” 28.

14The Ulma Family Museum exhibition, apparently providing an extensive presentation of the wartime reality, in fact substitutes the rescue of Jews for the Holocaust. Paradoxically, the Holocaust (and Holocaust trauma) is on the margins of this narrative, dropped by the exhibition in favor of the tragic but ultimately uplifting stories of the extraordinary dedication of the Poles. As Zofia Wóycicka aptly put it, “Although the Holocaust seems to be the main theme of the exhibition, in fact its key objective is to rebut allegations of collaboration in and profiteering from the Holocaust by the local population and to reinforce a narrative of Polish heroism and solidarity.”16 The aforementioned substitution contributes to this shift in perspectives. Using a variety of techniques, the presentation of the rescue of Jews unfolds as an argument justifying Polish self-affirmation (if not self-praise) and preventing it from being compromised.

• 17 Wóycicka, “Global Patterns,” 253.

19All these elements build the background for the most important section, which includes the topic of the rescue of Jews, following the Żegota part and devoted to the experience of Jews hiding “on the Aryan side.” The perspective is vital here: as Wóycicka puts it, “rather than focusing on the Polish rescuers, the exhibition tries to convey what it was like for a Polish Jew trying to survive outside of the ghetto.”17 Visitors are confronted with several briefly described stories of specific individuals, modestly illustrated with photographs, documents and a few objects. Only to some extent is the presentation systematized by curatorial text. What counts here rather is a consistent micro-perspective, which entails narrowing the view in order to make the visitors reflect deeply on very specific cases that metonymically stand for so many others. This is supported by the design of the section space: the room is dark and quiet, alluding to the conditions in hideouts, and the availability of materials is purposefully limited to some degree. Placed in niches in the walls, below the line of sight, partially covered, they force visitors into uncomfortable positions when examining them. The discomfort may enhance their focus and make them think about secrets and dangers.

• 18 It is worth noting that when the topic of Poles who saved Jews returns in the post-war gallery, it (...)

22To sum up, the core of Polin’s strategy is to contextualize the help by providing a detailed presentation of its circumstances. The rescue of Jews is presented as a part of history of the Holocaust and of Jewish history – contrary to the previous cases, in which it was an intrinsic part of the history of Polish heroism and resistance. Interestingly, the very term “Righteous Among the Nations” is virtually absent from the exhibition. As I mentioned in the introduction, in the self-affirmative discourse the phrase is replaced by “Poles saving Jews,” in a gesture of generalization. Here it is avoided for the opposite reasons: to build a micro-perspective focusing on the “here and now” of rescue stories, and not to look ahead to future tributes paid to the rescuers.18 Contextualization prevails here over other elements of the discourse, yet recognition and acknowledgment of the helpers is also implied.

• 19 Stephan Jaeger, The Second World War in the Twenty-First-Century Museum. From Narrative, Memory, an (...)

24The Museum of the Second World War (MSWW), once perceived as a liberal (or pluralist) answer to “national memory museum” projects, is now widely known as an example of forcible intervention by the mnemonic warriors in power in Poland in the activities of a critical historical museum. The museum was taken over in 2017, soon after the inauguration of its spectacular and huge permanent exhibition, and since this time over 20 changes have been introduced to the exhibition. As Stephan Jaeger aptly put it, the changes were made with the “intent of creating a more Polish, heroic, battle-oriented museum and a less civilian-based, transnational museum.”19

• 20 The following paragraphs present a shortened version of a more developed argument which I articulat (...)

25In the original form of the exhibition, the topic of the rescue of Jews was primarily present in two sections: the one devoted to the Holocaust and the one entitled “Resistance.”20 Importantly, no original content was removed from either. In the former, various attitudes of “non-Jewish Poles” towards Jews are contrasted, including indifference, facilitating the Holocaust, as well as help. A board summarizing the story quotes the number of the Polish Righteous, and is accompanied by an exhibit: a washing bowl belonging to the Jews who were hidden by Poles living in the vicinity of the Treblinka death camp. All this was designed as an element of a bigger section focusing on the extermination of Jews and leading the visitor to a moving “space of reflection,” filled with panels presenting thousands of portrait photos of the victims.

• 21 See Kobielska, “Narrative and Resilience.”

30The changes introduced in both sections offer an exceptional opportunity to trace in detail the desired shift of narrative on the rescue of the Jews. The MSWW’s original mode was a variant of the critical strategy of “recognition and contextualization”; in comparison with Polin, more emphasis was placed on acknowledging the helpers, with the use of recurrent memory themes such as the number of those honored by Yad Vashem. The new strategy, revealed by the changes introduced after 2017, uses the Righteous as a kind of antidote for mnemonical insecurities in a story originally told by the exhibition; they thus become a tool of what can be called a “Polonization” of the museum. It is important to note, however, that it is questionable whether unsystematic, disjointed changes of this kind may significantly affect the general message of the exhibition, taking into account its size and complexity.21

• 22 Zuzanna Bogumił, “Miejsce pamięci versus symulacja przeszłości – II wojna światowa na wystawach his (...)

31With this in mind, a further example should allow us to enhance the analysis of the power of memory patterns sketched above. To move towards the conclusion, I will briefly examine Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory in Krakow, a museum which is challenged by the schemes in a particular way. First and foremost, the museum bears the name of one of the most famous – perhaps the most renowned worldwide – of the Righteous Among the Nations, who happens to be a non-Polish rescuer. It may thus introduce a certain incoherence to the template, in which the Righteous tend to represent Polishness. Secondly, to intensify the effect, the museum is located in the space of the former Schindler’s factory, attracting particular attention of international visitors who follow the Steven Spielberg film route. Thirdly, however, the permanent exhibition aims at covering the topic of Krakow under Nazi occupation during Second World War – not focusing on the rescue, on the figure of Oskar Schindler or on the history of the space, although including the history of both Polish and Jewish inhabitants of the city confronted with the German perpetrators.22