Collective Memory: what is remembered about Jedwabne and why

During a presentation at Jagiellonian University, Professor Marek Kucia explained interesting aspects related to collective memory as it relates to history in Poland after 1945. Collective memory is communicative memory, such as stories told to you by your grandmother. It also includes cultural memory, such as books, monuments and commemorations. One thing we quickly learned about Poland is there is a memorial or commemoration for practically everything.

The professor also explained there are memorials that excluded details related to the event being memorialized. This relates to collective memory because if the compete story is not told, or if it misrepresented on a memorial, then the true history dies with those who know it.

An interesting and sad case occurred in Jedwabne, Poland. In 1941 non-Jewish men of the town were forced by the nazis to massacre their Jewish neighbors. Although there was a small plaque placed in the town to memorialize get the event, it did not explain the victims of the attack were Jews nor that the attackers were their neighbors at the demand of the nazis. I thought this story was especially powerful because it means the tragedy of the massacre was magnified because the victimizers (the non-Jewish men who murdered) were the victims of the SS as well.  The event was not talked about and almost forgotten, until research began in the 1990s and in 2001, a new monument was placed in the town containing the complete details.