Navigating an unwanted heritage: displacement, accommodation and effacement in Lublin’s local heritage initiatives

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents three instances of heritage activism in Lublin, Poland, in which activists responded to the ‘unwanted’ nature of Jewish heritage with strategies of displacement, accommodation and effacement. Lublin is a city with a substantial prewar Jewish heritage; it was also the site of Nazi genocidal policies that transformed the Jewish Quarter into a ghetto, deported its inhabitants to death camps, and destroyed the material landscape of Jewish life. Post-War urban development obscured the traces of this process. In addition, there is no widespread social and political agreement that the Jewish past in particular should find expression in present-day public culture in Lublin. Using three cases this article argues that Lublin is an instance in which political democratisation and heritage activism are often at odds, and that heritage outcomes reflect this.