Sentimental Auschwitz and Righteous Gentiles: Holocaust Kitsch as a Political Tool in Polish Popular Culture

• In Event: Past-Present Rewind: Remembering History in Central and Eastern European Popular Culture

Abstract

The paper examines two recent trends in Polish popular culture that use direct references to the history of the Second World War and shows their role in contemporary right-wing populist politics. The first one is represented by the popular novels about Auschwitz that are part of a global trend (exemplified by Tattooist from Auschwitz or Boy in Striped Pajamas) but acquired a specific form in Polish context in the form of books about Polish Auschwitz prisoner midwife Stanisława Leszczyńska (books by Magdalena Knedler and Nina Majewska-Brown from 2020). These novels not only strengthen the “mnemonic security” (Mälksoo 2015) of the national self-image but also use anti-abortion discourse (Graff and Korolczuk 2022), contributing to contemporary ideological clashes. The second trend, asserting the common engagement of Poles in helping Jews during the Holocaust, is illustrated by the state-sponsored series of TV films Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire (2021). In this case, the “retrotopian” (Bauman 2017) motive works not only to support the safe image of the Polish wartime past but also to include in the heroic discourse “the people”: from smaller villages and not engaged in armed resistance. These two case studies show how past-oriented popular culture, both commercial and state-sponsored, may be interpreted as a powerful tool in the populist moment of contemporary politics in Poland.

Author

• Aleksandra Szczepan, U of Potsdam (Germany)