Backstories of Commemoration: Memoryscapes of Polish Galicia
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Małgorzata Łukianow
Summary
This article explores memoryscapes of the Jewish community in Brzesko and Nowy Wiśnicz, towns in Polish Galicia. These towns present divergent methods of dealing with the past in which Jews – the Others and Neighbors – perished and disappeared. In Nowy Wiśnicz, the remembrance of Jewish residents is limited. Despite boasting a large Jewish cemetery and multiple locals awarded Righteous Among the Nations, the focus remains on Jan Matejko, a renowned Polish painter. In 1945, there were numerous incidents of anti-Semitic violence in Nowy Wiśnicz. This violence was directed not only towards the few survivors who returned, but also towards what little remained of the Jewish quarter. By the end of the 1950 s, all buildings in that quarter had been demolished. In contrast, Brzesko honors its departed Jewish community through the March of the Living, with the local government supporting the erection of plaques, memorials, and exhibitions. The exhibition at the local museum, facilitated by local memory leaders, covered the topic of Jews in Brzesko. While the memory of this topic seems to be “closed” and settled, a closer examination of tourist flyers describing the history of the town’s market square reveals an absence of the word “Jewish”, even though the square was once bustling with Jewish shops prior to the war. The study of the interaction between the researchers and the leaders of local memory will provide insight into the power dynamics within the research team, interlocutors, and the wider community.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on research and data collection funded within the project: “Social Anthropology of the Void: Poland and Ukraine after World War II”, financed by the National Program for the Development of the Humanities (no. 0101/NPRH3/H12/82/2014). The research team comprised several researchers who recorded oral history accounts and consulted historical sources. They were: Anna Wylegała, Hanna Gospodarczyk, Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek, and Dagmara Swałtek-Niewińska. I would like to thank Kamilla Biskupska, Simon Lewis and Anna Wylegała for their comments on this paper. I also thank Dagmara Swałtek-Niewińska for her consultation.
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© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Themenschwerpunkt / Main Topic: Decentering Polish Memory: Parallax Perspectives on East-Central European Pasts
- Introduction: Parallax Perspectives on Polish Pasts
- Cherishing the memories you have
- Backstories of Commemoration: Memoryscapes of Polish Galicia
- Memory-making and Vampire-hunting: A Hauntological Study of the “Recovered” Pomerania in the 1950s
- City under (re)construction: Architectural narrations as a foundation story of a city with a broken cultural continuity
- “A Larger Realm of Reality”: Jewish Women in Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob (2014)
- Weitere Artikel zum Polnischen / Further Articles on Polish
- Zwischen Verfassungspatriotismus und nationalem Trauer-Patriotismus im Polnischen
- Sight, Knowledge, Variety, and Correction: Kasijan Sakovyč’s Perspektywa and Related Book Titles
- Sprachliche Selbstpositionierung auf X unter den Wählern rechtsgerichteter Parteien in Polen und Deutschland im Europawahlkampf 2024
- Buchbesprechung
- Aspektvariation im Polnischen
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Themenschwerpunkt / Main Topic: Decentering Polish Memory: Parallax Perspectives on East-Central European Pasts
- Introduction: Parallax Perspectives on Polish Pasts
- Cherishing the memories you have
- Backstories of Commemoration: Memoryscapes of Polish Galicia
- Memory-making and Vampire-hunting: A Hauntological Study of the “Recovered” Pomerania in the 1950s
- City under (re)construction: Architectural narrations as a foundation story of a city with a broken cultural continuity
- “A Larger Realm of Reality”: Jewish Women in Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob (2014)
- Weitere Artikel zum Polnischen / Further Articles on Polish
- Zwischen Verfassungspatriotismus und nationalem Trauer-Patriotismus im Polnischen
- Sight, Knowledge, Variety, and Correction: Kasijan Sakovyč’s Perspektywa and Related Book Titles
- Sprachliche Selbstpositionierung auf X unter den Wählern rechtsgerichteter Parteien in Polen und Deutschland im Europawahlkampf 2024
- Buchbesprechung
- Aspektvariation im Polnischen
