Research results

The policy of remembrance in the context of the Holocaust in Poland and the USA in the twenty-first century

The subject of the proposed research is the policy of remembrance in the context of the Holocaust in the twenty-first century in Poland and the United States. There have been many papers on the analysis of the Holocaust itself, and for this reason the subject of the interest of the research was the issue of the official way of remembering this event in these countries. The American legalization of the memory of the Holocaust is related to the act establishing the Holocaust Memorial Council, gathering representatives of science, socio-political and economic life. This council was to deal with the implementation of the recommendations of the President’s Comission on the Holocaust proposing a way to commemorate this event in the United States of America in such a way that Americans can learn from this history. This is how it was created The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. In Poland, thanks to the policy of the central authorities of the non-democratic regime, an official memorial site was established in the former largest nazi camp for the mass extermination of Jews. This place is also a place of martyrdom of many other categories of victims, including Polish martyrdom. A lot of evidence of crimes against humanity has been put on public display in the Museum, including personal belongings. Exhibitions are the main area of activity of the Auschwitz Museum, in contrast to the Museum in Washington. This means that it is an encyclopaedic museum, striving for the ideal of a complete collection. Objects are perceived
as sources of knowledge. The perspective of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., is completely different, as its narrative serves primarily on the political agenda. The Washington museum is a memorial to the Holocaust on American soil with the implications behind it. The idea is to focus on both the “unique” Jewish and “universal” significance of the Holocaust; therefore, it shows dangers such as the effects of fascism on democratic society, American “constitutional rights” and Western civilization. This does not mean that the Polish encyclopaedic museum does not also serve the political agenda.

This paper is based on the interpretationist theory, focusing on meanings. According to this theory, we cannot understand the human relations that produce different institutions if we do not understand the meanings associated with them. Foucault, its representative, made the subject of his research the discovery of mechanisms of power relations over the prevailing discourse, produced by institutions. The aim of applying post-Foucauldian analyses is to discover the mechanisms of power relations over the discourse on the Holocaust in Poland and in the USA.