Remembering the Holocaust and the Jewish Past in Kraków, 1980-2013 A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2016 Janek Gryta School of Arts, Languages and Cultures List of Contents List of Contents ...................................................................................................................... 2 List of Abbreviations.............................................................................................................. 4 List of Illustrations ................................................................................................................. 6 Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 7 Declaration and Copyright Statement .................................................................................... 8 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 9 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 10 Research Objectives and Questions .............................................................................. 12 Literature Review .......................................................................................................... 14 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 18 Contributions of the Study ............................................................................................ 26 Sources .......................................................................................................................... 27 Structure of the Thesis ................................................................................................... 28 Background to the Study ............................................................................................... 30 Part One ................................................................................................................................ 42 Defining Heritage Work ................................................................................................... 42 Chapter One: Ragged Houses and Candlelight: The Romance of the Jewish Past and Heritage Production under Communist Rule .................................................................... 46 Redefining Kazimierz .................................................................................................... 48 Heritage Work in Practice ............................................................................................. 66 The Critical Approach as a Basis for Cosmopolitan Memory Project .......................... 71 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 74 Chapter Two: Past for Sale? Revival in the ‘Jewish Disneyland’ .................................... 77 Jewish Space .................................................................................................................. 78 Embodying the 'Shtetl-Romance ' ................................................................................. 80 2 Other Spaces – Other Identities ..................................................................................... 93 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 104 Part Two ............................................................................................................................. 107 Defining the Museum ..................................................................................................... 107 Chapter Three: The Shaping of Holocaust Memory Before the fall of Communism ..... 115 Krakow’s Activists and the Struggle to Narrate Memories ........................................ 116 First Exhibitions - History in a Glass Case ................................................................. 128 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 145 Chapter Four: Feeling (for) Kraków's Traumatic Past ................................................... 147 The 1990s: Freezing of the Memory Work ................................................................. 149 Early 2000s: The ‘Restoring Memory’ Campaign ...................................................... 152 2010 and Beyond: the Memorial Trail ........................................................................ 168 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 191 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 194 Jewish Spaces – Spaces of Shared History ................................................................. 196 Urbanising Memory Work .......................................................................................... 198 Cosmopolitan Memory Work: New Content and New Modes of Representation ...... 199 The Importance of the 1989 Threshold ....................................................................... 201 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 204 Word count: 79,288 3 List of Abbreviations GKBZH Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce (Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerites’ Crimes in Poland) IPN Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Institute of National Remembrance) JHP Jewish Heritage Program KIK (plural: KIKs) Klub Inteligencji Katolickiej (Club of Catholic Intelligentsia) MHK Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa (Historical Museum of the City of Kraków) MPW Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego (Warsaw Rising Museum) OKBZH Okręgowa Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Krakowie (Regional Committee for Investigation of Hitlerites’ Crimes) PiS Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Order Party) PKZ Pracownie Konserwacji Zabytków (Conservation of Architectural Monuments) PO Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform) PRL Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa (Polish People’s Republic) PZPR Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (Polish United Workers’ Party) SARP Stowarzyszenie Architektów Polskich (Society of Polish Architects) SKOZK Społeczny Komitet Odnowy Zabytków Krakowa (Citizens’ Committee for the Renovation of Kraków’s Monuments) 4 SLD Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej (Democratic Left Alliance) TPDP Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Dzielnicy Podgórze (Society of Friends of Podgórze District) WMF World Monuments Fund WUOZ Wojewódzki Urząd Ochrony Zabytków (Regional Heritage Protection Office) WW Wydział do Spraw Wyznań (Department of Religious Affairs) ZBOWiD Związek Bojowników o Wolność i Demokrację, (Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy) ZPAP Związek Polskich Artystów Plastyków (Association of Polish Artists and Designers) 5 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Map of Kazimierz with most important Jewish relics, p. 48. Source: Janek Gryta. Based on Kpalion via Wikimedia Commons. Figure 2: Once Upon a Time in Kazimierz, p. 83. Source: Theofila via Wikimedia Commons. Figure 3: The Eagle Pharmacy, 1983, p. 132. Source: Eugeniusz Duda, in author’s collection. Figure 6: The Ghetto Heroes Square, p. 159. Source: A&D via Wikimedia Commons. Figure 7: The Eagle Pharmacy, 2013, p. 179. Source: Piotr Drabik from Poland via Wikimedia Commons. Figure 8: The Oskar Schindler Factory, p. 181. Source: Jorge Láscar via Wikimedia Commons. 6 Abstract This thesis examines the ways in which the Holocaust and the Jewish past have been remembered in Kraków, investigates the impact local memory work has had on Polish collective memory, and problematises the importance of the 1989 threshold for that memory work. Looking at Kraków, an exceptional and exceptionally important case study, between 1980 and 2013, the thesis investigates heritage creations in Kazimierz, the old Jewish Town, and traces the genealogies of Holocaust exhibitions presented in Kraków. It also traces the emergence of urban critical narratives about the past, pertaining both to the city and to Poland as a whole. Created in opposition to the mainstream ethno-nationalist narrative, which was often supported by both the Communist and the democratic governments, the interpretation of the past laid out in Kraków gradually incorporated the Jewish past into the narrative on Polish history. The thesis demonstrates how, over the course of thirty years, Jews came to be presented as rightful members of the Polish national community, and the Holocaust as an integral part of Polish war history, albeit still distinct to other sufferings. At the forefront of the process of excavating and presenting Kraków’s Jewish past were local memory activists. In particular, this thesis highlights the pivotal role played by mid-ranking officials from municipal administration and by fictive kinships in the process of urbanisation of memory. These individuals and groups translated the ideas of critical engagement with the nation’s history, propagated by some sections of the national elite, into a form that could be consumed by a mass audience. In addition, the thesis demonstrates that memory work on a local level persisted almost uninterrupted through the transition to democracy. Activists