Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979. Jonathan Huener

Map 2. Auschwitz I Camp, 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 memorial during the postwar period, when the site successively was transformed, contested, and reinterpreted. In its deftness, nuance, and subtlety, Jonathan Huener’s book comes to us as a model scholarly work that makes an outstanding contribution to the historical literature not only in Polish studies and Jewish studies, but also in the cultural studies field.

      Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979 is the third volume in the new Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series. The series revisits the historical and contemporary experience of one of America’s largest European ethnic groups and the history of a European homeland that has played a disproportionately important role in twentieth-century world affairs. The series publishes innovative monographs and more general works that investigate under- or unexplored topics or themes or that offer new, critical, revisionist, or comparative perspectives in Polish and Polish-American studies. Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary in profile, the series seeks manuscripts on Polish immigration and ethnic communities, the country of origin, and its various peoples in history, anthropology, cultural studies, political economy, current politics, and related fields.

      Publication of the Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series marks a milestone in the maturation of the Polish studies field and stands as a fitting tribute to the scholars and organizations whose efforts have brought it to fruition. Supported by a series advisory board of accomplished Polonists and Polish-Americanists, the Polish and Polish-American Studies Series has been made possible through generous financial assistance from the Polish American Historical Association, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, the Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish and Polish American Studies at Central Connecticut State University, and St. Mary’s College and through institutional support from Wayne State University and Ohio University Press. Publication of this particular series volume also has been aided by support from the Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont, the University of Vermont College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Fund for Faculty Development, and a University of Vermont Department of History Nelson Grant. As an ambitious new undertaking, the series meanwhile has benefited from the warm encouragement of a number of persons, including Gillian Berchowitz, M. B. B. Biskupski, the late Stanislaus A. Blejwas, Thomas Gladsky, Thaddeus Gromada, Donald Pienkos, James S. Pula, David Sanders, and Thaddeus Radzilowski. The moral and material support from all of these institutions and individuals is gratefully acknowledged.