{"title":"Testimoniality: A lexicon of witnesses of Holocaust non-sites of memory in Poland","authors":"Maria Kobielska, Aleksandra Szczepan","doi":"10.3897/hmc.1.63306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/hmc.1.63306","url":null,"abstract":"The authors analyse grassroots modalities of the figure of witness in the communities living in the vicinity of uncommemorated sites of past violence. Testimoniality, understood as the disposition to bear witness, i.e. both the willingness to testify and the ability to provide important information, is discussed in relation to complex, heterogenic and dynamic assemblages that form around the sites in question, comprising both human (neighbours, wardens) and non-human actors (the landscape and biotope, material objects), diverse practices, performative gestures, and relations. The analysis is placed in the context of the debate on the complicated status of the “witness” as a category in the Polish post-war culture of memory, as well as of new relevant categories emerging in both Polish and international scholarship on the Holocaust. The authors conceptually systematise testimonial situations and propose a lexicon of testimonial positions, practices and objects that are grounded in the material gathered in fieldwork during the research project on unmemorialised sites of genocide in Poland. They distinguish: the crown witness, the trustee, the volunteer, the official and the contingent witness, and discuss categories of testimonial gesture, testimonial performance, testimonial object, and testimonial words.","PeriodicalId":302470,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Heritage, Memory and Conflict","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127821793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sites of violence and their communities: Critical memory studies in the post-human era (Kraków, 24–25 September 2019)","authors":"Aleksandra Szczepan","doi":"10.3897/hmc.1.63311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/hmc.1.63311","url":null,"abstract":"This discussion gathers voices of an international group of researchers and practitioners from various disciplines and institutions who focus on diverse aspects of sites of past violence in their work: archaeology, history, ethics, literature and art, curatorial practices, oral history, education and commemoration. The debate, which took place during the conference “Sites of Violence and Their Communities: Critical Memory Studies in the Post-Human Era” in Kraków in September 2019, itself centres on six main topics: the question of archives of uncommemorated killing sites; research methodology; the position of the researchers themselves; the problem of complicity during conflict and the right to be a witness to past crimes; the place of the Righteous Among the Nations within Polish collective memory and the international debate on the Holocaust; and, finally, new ways of commemoration and education about mass violence.\u0000 Participants: Katarzyna Bojarska, Michał Chojak, Ewa Domańska, Zuzanna Dziuban, Karolina Grzywnowicz, Aleksandra Janus, Karina Jarzyńska, Maria Kobielska, Rob van der Laarse, Bryce Lease, Erica Lehrer, Jacek Leociak, Tomasz Łysak, Tomasz Majkowski, Christina Morina, Matilda Mroz, Adam Musiał, Agnieszka Nieradko, Łukasz Posłuszny, Roma Sendyka, Caroline Sturdy Colls, Katarzyna Suszkiewicz, Aleksandra Szczepan, Krijn Thijs, Jonathan Webber, Anna Zagrodzka, Tomasz Żukowski","PeriodicalId":302470,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Heritage, Memory and Conflict","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125569204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Vernacular memory and implicated communities","authors":"Aleksandra Janus","doi":"10.3897/hmc.1.63428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3897/hmc.1.63428","url":null,"abstract":"Abandoned sites of trauma in Poland appear to be forgotten, but their removal from social and cultural circles is only superficial. Frequently, these sites are inscribed into the local culture of memory and members of the local Polish communities can usually locate them and share stories about them. However, as they are not commemorated, there is an ambivalent aura around them. In 2017 two foundations (Zapomniane Foundation, The Matzevah Foundation) carried out an intervention into the landscape of Poland by marking thirty burial sites of Jewish victims of the Holocaust with simple wooden markers. The effects of that intervention shed light on the vernacular local memory of the Holocaust and the folk-traditional roots of the practices and behaviors related to these sites.","PeriodicalId":302470,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Heritage, Memory and Conflict","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126009953","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}