Between the unveiling of the core exhibition of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in October of 2014 and the initiation of the design process of this project in 1993, several teams of specialists and numerous members of the general public discussed the profile and content of the museum. Among hundreds of discussed issues, there were two dominating heated controversies: how to present the Holocaust and a history of antisemitism in Poland. The book under review is a continuation of this debate and is based on the presentations delivered during the Princeton University Conference on Polish-Jewish Studies in April 2015.
The volume opens with the “Conference report” by Geneviève Zubrzycki, the Conference Rapporteur and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, who describes all the six panels of the conference. A reader can see that only ten of the twenty-one presentations are published. The editors of the volume do not explain this selection beyond a statement: “Not all the papers delivered during the conference were presented for this publication, and none was submitted by the speakers professionally involved in POLIN …” (7). Indeed, all three presenters of the first panel (Rethinking Historical Narratives: The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews), Dariusz Stola, the Director of the Museum; Samuel Kassow, a Professor of Trinity College and the creator of the interwar exhibition; and Marcin Wodziński, a Professor of the Wrocław University and a historical consultant of the Museum, did not submit the texts of their presentations. Among other participants that also did not submit are Michael Steinlauf from Gratz College, Beth Holmgren from Duke University, and Karolina Szymaniak from the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.
One can easily observe that a majority of the submitted texts are critical of the Museum. Their authors offer many strong and convincing arguments, but frequently the critical voices are radical and exaggerated. Jan Grabowski, a Professor of the University of Ottawa, analyzes the “historical policy” of the Polish authorities and shows how they abuse the memory of the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, the Żegota Council for Help to the Jews, Jan Karski, Irena Sendler, and others, all in order to cover up difficult or shameless episodes of Polish history and to de-Judaize the Holocaust. Jan T. Gross describes the most important factors contributing to antisemitism in Poland during the Second World War. Irena Grudzińska-Gross, the organizer of the conference and Professor at Princeton University, writes about Polish defensive myths. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Professor at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and the Polish Academy of Sciences, criticizes the program of the Museum and claims that POLIN “does not require the audience to reflect upon difficult issues” (55); “has created a subtle and nuanced “Polish response” to this accusation” [that a number of Poles contributed to the execution of the Final Solution] (51); and “deemphasizes Jewish martyrdom” (58).
Piotr Matyjaszek from the Polish Academy of Sciences critically analyzes the strategies of the creators of the Museum, and writes about “the Polonization of Jewish History” at POLIN. Piotr Forecki from the University of Poznań and Anna Zawadzka from the Polish Academy of Sciences repeat the argument of their predecessors that “the main task of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is to protect the image of Poland and Poles” (108).
The volume is dominated by a fifty-page-long text by Elżbieta Janicka, a scholar from the Polish Academy of Sciences and an artist-photographer. She argues that “the present-day space around the Monument [to the Fighters and the Martyrs of the Ghetto] and the Museum is a manifestation of the narrative pattern characteristic of the dominant Polish narrative of the Holocaust,” which “is drastically different from the actual facts” and “is characterized by the dynamics of an obsessive-compulsive disorder” (122). Janicka writes about the “de-Judaization of the Holocaust,” “Polonization,” “the decontextualization of Jewish history” (136), and “the Polish myth,” which is “the Museum's master narrative.” “And it is not only a narrative,” adds Janicka, “it is also a principle that delegitimizes alternative narratives” (140). She is not shy about presenting risky historical interpretations and claims, for example, that Żegota “was established and exploited by the Polish Underground State for propaganda and financial purposes” (159). POLIN, concludes Janicka, “not only does not challenge, but downright perpetuates and transmits, and therefore legitimizes and consolidates constructions which are at home in a museum of anti-Semitism” (161).
Zubrzycki's “Problematizing the ‘Jewish Turn’” offers a more balanced view of the Museum's narrative. Karen Underhill, a co-organizer of the conference and a professor of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Erica Lehrer, a professor of Concordia University, tentatively defend the Museum and the arguments of those who did not submit their presentations. Lehrer writes about “the difficult encounter between scholars” during the conference (197) and quotes Michael Steinlauf, who “noted with some incredulity that in their rhetoric these politically left-wing Poles might have been mistaken for right-wing Jews” (198). Lehrer understands the radical critics' “extreme rhetoric” but calls it a “monotone, ‘sledgehammer’ approach” (211).
It is unfortunate that we can follow only one side of the discussion, considering that POLIN was granted the prestigious 2016 European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA). The jury appreciated both the quality of the museum's core exhibition presenting 1000 years of Polish-Jewish coexistence and the Museum's educational, academic, and social programs. In 2016, POLIN was also granted the EMA (European Museum Academy) Prize. To quote the jury statement: “the POLIN Museum is not just an excellent museum but a state of art cultural institution that reaches a diverse public all over the world. That is why it deserves the title of a ‘Total Museum.’”
