The Politics of Holocaust Memory in Central and Eastern Europe: Contemporary Poland as a Comparative Case Study

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the contentious politics of Holocaust memory in contemporary Poland as a comparative case study. It presents an overview of three controversies since the electoral victory of the Law and Justice Party in 2015, followed by an analysis of the Jedwabne debate in the early 2000s—the most profound discussion of Polish-Jewish relations since the Second World War. It then contextualizes the politics of Holocaust memory in Poland within a comparative-historical framework, drawing parallels to forms of Holocaust distortion in present day Hungary as a means of elucidating the Polish case. The chapter concludes by discussing Polish collective memory and the Holocaust in relation to Hungary and urges scholars to interrogate the instrumentalization of the Holocaust as a sociological phenomenon permeating national and transnational politics in post-Communist Europe.