Nr 21 - History and Memory - numer specjalny

"Biuletyn Instytutu Zachodniego" nr 21/2009: doc. Maria Rutowska, doc. Zbigniew Mazur,  prof. Hubert Orłowski - History and Memory: mass expulsions and transfers 1939-1945-1949

The following book is dedicated to the issue of forming historical memory. It examines to what extent the perpetrators, responsible for the displacements of Poles during the Second World War, realize their role in the process, and how the historical memory of the German nation refers to the dishonourable past. All the problems are discussed in three separate papers. The first paper presents the plans, scale and range of the resettlements Germans implemented on the occupied Polish territories from 1939 to 1945, and the fates of the Polish people who fell victim to the Nazi pursuit of the “new living space” for Germans. Another paper deals with the selectiveness of collective memory. It analyses the changes in German national historical memory related to the process of emphasizing the victimhood and suffering of the German nation, and ways of denying the blame for the cruelties committed during the war. The last paper focuses on the institutionalized (and non-institutionalized) violence of the state and explores its representations in the historical politics of governments and social-cultural identity of nations. It interprets notions used to describe displacements and defines their emotional references. The articles present the problems differently and show different analytical approaches. But set together, they point to the complexities of collective memory and the process of its creation.