Transforming remembrance in the former death camp Belzec – a short history
The former death camp Bełżec has only a small place in the public memory on the Holocaust. During four decades the place has been nearly forgotten, since neither Polish officials nor the local inhabitants showed much interest in it. Only in the aftermath of the collapse of communism in 1989, the sit...
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| Publicat a: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/temoigner, |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
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Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire
2025
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| Matèries: | |
| Accés en línia: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sumari: | The former death camp Bełżec has only a small place in the public memory on the Holocaust. During four decades the place has been nearly forgotten, since neither Polish officials nor the local inhabitants showed much interest in it. Only in the aftermath of the collapse of communism in 1989, the situation of the former death camp Bełżec began to change. In 2004 a new memorial complex was officially inaugurated as a branch of the state museum in Majdanek. For more than 8 years the museum and memorial in Bełżec are now active parts of the remembrance culture in Poland. But since the new memorial has been primarily constructed to preserve the mass graves as a cemetery, the transformation of the former camp into an educational place of significance is only a secondary goal. Nevertheless, the staff of the museum fosters historical education in the region of eastern Poland. This task is not easy to realize since Society’s opinion on the fate of the Jewish population remains divided. |
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