Estera Flieger: The populist rewriting of Polish history is a warning to us all
Populists treat the past like fast food: they go straight for what’s tasty and
comforting for them, leaving aside the bits that might be healthier and more
nutritious for all. But the honest study of history is not about making you
feel good. Take the case of the second world war and how, 80 years after the invasion
of Poland, a dispute in Gdańsk over a museum about the war is playing out.
The populists in
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party have meddled so much in redrafting
the narrative conveyed both by the museum and its main exhibition that four
Polish historians involved with the institution’s creation and launch have been
left with little choice but to go to court.
The courts are hardly
the best place to adjudicate on the lessons of history. Universities,
academies, libraries and museums are surely more suited to such debates. So let
me explain how things got to this point.
The Gdańsk Museum of
the Second World War opened in 2017 to some fanfare; its distinguishing and
unconventional features were to be its special focus both on the global context
of the war and on the fate of civilians in the bloody conflict. The main
exhibition took eight years to put together. The American historian Timothy
Snyder called the project a “civilisational achievement” and “perhaps the most
ambitious museum devoted to the second world war in any country”... read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/17/populist-rewriting-polish-history-museum-poland-gdansksee also
Poland’s
nationalists are burying their antisemitic past – this is dangerous. By
Przemyslaw Wielgosz