The Restoration of a Commemorative Idiom, 1954 and Beyond
5. The Internationalization of the Auschwitz Site
6. The Power and Limits of a Commemorative Idiom: John Paul II at the “Golgotha of Our Age”
Poland and Auschwitz in the 1980s
Illustrations
MAPS
Map 1. Auschwitz environs, summer 1944
Map 3. Auschwitz II (Birkenau) Camp, summer 1944
PHOTOGRAPHS
1. The main gate of the base camp, Auschwitz I, spring 1945
2. The main street of Auschwitz I, looking east, spring 1945
3. Birkenau, the road between sectors BI and BII, spring 1945
4. Birkenau, human remains near Crematorium V, spring 1945
5. Birkenau, members of the Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes at Auschwitz
6. Auschwitz I, roof of Crematorium I, May 1945
7. The first exhibition at the State Museum at Auschwitz, in the cellar of Block 4 of Auschwitz I
8. A crowd gathered in Auschwitz I for the dedication ceremonies of the State Museum, 14 June 1947
9. Józef Cyrankiewicz speaking at the museum’s dedication ceremonies, 14 June 1947
10. A Roman Catholic mass held in the courtyard between Blocks 10 and 11 of Auschwitz I, 14 June 1947
11. Birkenau, members of the museum’s protective guard at the ruins of a crematorium, 1948
12. Birkenau, sector BIIe, former prisoners and members of the museum staff on a break from searching for evidence, 1949
13. An exhibition hall displaying prostheses, from the early 1950s
14. Suitcases on display in the museum, from a pre-1955 exhibit
15. A view of a section of the “Jewish Hall” of a pre-1955 exhibition
16. A memorial in the cellar of Block 4, Auschwitz I, from a pre-1955 exhibition
17–19. Three exhibition panels from the era of Polish Stalinism
20. Birkenau, monument to the victims of Auschwitz between the ruins of Crematoria II and III, April 1955
21. A plaster model of Gas Chamber and Crematorium II, from the 1955 exhibition
22. Women’s hair on display in Block 4 of Auschwitz I, from the 1955 exhibition
23. Auschwitz I, Block 7: A reconstruction of a masonry barracks in the Birkenau Women’s Camp, from the 1955 exhibition
24. A room in the “New Laundry” emphasizing international cooperation, from the 1955 exhibition
25. Participants in a motorcycle rally that included a ceremonial visit to Auschwitz and Birkenau
26. On the twentieth anniversary of the liberation, a scout and a former prisoner standing at attention next to the “Wall of Death” in the courtyard of Block 11
27. A crowd at Birkenau for the unveiling of the Monument to the Victims of Fascism, April 1967
28. The Monument to the Victims of Fascism in Birkenau, April 1967
29. Inscription at the entrance to the 1968 exhibition on the “Martyrology and Struggle of the Jews”
30. Panels from the 1968 exhibition on the “Martyrology and Struggle of the Jews”
31. The final room in the 1968 exhibit on the “Martyrology and Struggle of the Jews”
32. Pope John Paul II receiving former prisoners at the papal mass at Birkenau, 7 June 1979
33. The former Theatergebäude and former Carmelite Convent at Auschwitz I
34. Aerial photograph of Auschwitz I, 1996
35. Aerial photograph of Birkenau, 1996
Series Editor’s Preface
BEFORE THE SECOND WORLD WAR, Poland was home to a large and thriving Jewish community. By the end of the war, the Nazis had destroyed most of the country’s Jewish population while murdering large numbers of Christian Poles as well. Poland had become a different place, its population decimated, its boundaries changed. Polish “liberation,” meanwhile, had left the country a Soviet satellite.
Poland’s tangled prewar and wartime history complicated the twin post-war tasks of Polish reconstruction and the commemoration of the country’s huge wartime losses. The epicenter of Poland’s wartime catastrophe, the Nazi concentration camp complex at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where both ethnic Poles and Jews had perished, symbolized the horror of Nazism and thus became the focal point for preserving wartime memory. But commemoration proved neither an apolitical nor a neutral act. Poles would bend the memorial site at Auschwitz to the purpose of constructing postwar Polish identity and nationhood. At Auschwitz, the country also would confront what has loomed as perhaps the greatest challenge to the Poles’ national project, the problem—and tragedy—of ethnic Polish-Jewish relations.
Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979, by University of Vermont historian Jonathan Huener, offers a balanced, nuanced treatment of this particularly difficult chapter of modern Polish history. A judicious work marked by meticulous research, disturbing descriptions, and keen analysis, Huener’s study lays bare the thinking of the politicians, officials, and museum curators who planned and executed the Auschwitz
