Stone Archive of World War I Victims: The Case of the Monument from Ruszów (Poland) and Various Aspects of Community Archaeology

This article presents the discovery in Ruszów (German: Rauscha, today in Poland) of 103 stone epitaphs from a demolished monument commemorating the inhabitants of this village – German soldiers who died during World War I. After World War II, Poland received part of Germany’s territory in exchange for lands lost to the Soviet Union. Forced deportations followed the change of borders. Polish displaced persons in the new territories found a foreign cultural heritage, which they often treated as hostile – due to the vivid memories of the German occupation. In such circumstances, the monument in Ruszów was destroyed. The village inhabitants remembered this and decided to change it by initiating community archaeology to research the monument’s relics. The universal right to remember the dead, which, in their opinion was violated in the act of destroying the monument, was the motivation for their actions. It prompted the scientists helping them to reflect on the various aspects of community archaeology.