Defending the “Good Name” of the Polish Nation: Politics of History as a Battlefield in Poland, 2015–18

Abstract

ABSTRACTPolitics of History (Geschichtspolitik) has become a major catchword in the Polish public discourse since 2000, when the debate on the wartime murder of the Jews from the town of Jedwabne began. Since then a politicized culture of remembrance has developed in Poland, which is most visible in various new and internationally proclaimed historical museums. Since 2015, the right-wing Polish government has attempted to closely control those institutions that are regarded as crucial for shaping the national remembrance in order to implement a mnemonic policy with the aim of promoting patriotism and defending a positive image of the ethno-linguistically defined Polish nation abroad. This political strategy, however, is not limited to a narrow national vision of Polish heroism and victimhood during World War II, but also tries to connect with the commemoration of Poles as the largest group of the Righteous among the Nations. Three cases are presented and discussed in this text, namely, the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, which came under political pressure even before its inauguration in 2017; the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II in South-eastern Poland, which plays a major role in the current Polish government's politics of memory; and the debate on the so-called “Holocaust law” in 2018 with the intention to prosecute the use of the term of “Polish death camps,” also internationally.