‘The barn is burning’: Polish popular music and memory of the Holocaust in the twenty-first century

Abstract

ABSTRACT There are three important phenomena in the lyrics of popular Polish songs about the Holocaust. Firstly, there is local resistance to the conflation of the town of Oświęcim with the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Secondly, the memory of the Jedwabne pogrom is used as a yardstick for contemporary societal evils and to comment upon the chasm between conservative and liberal segments in Polish society. Thirdly, the Catholic pro-life movement juxtaposes abortion and the Holocaust. These songs were released after the publication of Jan T. Gross’s Neighbors (2000) but there is a disparity in how the genocidal past is treated.