Horrific Pasts and Mundane Presents: Living among the Jewish Ghosts of Warsaw and Lublin

Laura Chamberland; Hernan Tesler-Mabé

doi:10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.13

Published: 2021-08-27

No. 25 (2021)

Horrific Pasts and Mundane Presents: Living among the Jewish Ghosts of Warsaw and Lublin

Laura Chamberland , Hernan Tesler-Mabé

Christianity-World-Politics

Section: Miscellanea

https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.13

Abstract

This article represents a consideration of the way in which the Jewish past in two key areas of Poland is obfuscated by the historical processes that led to the creation and re-creation of the urban space. Focussing on the district of Muranow in Warsaw and the Majdanek site in Lublin, the authors argue that the juxtaposition of the horrific past and a more mundane present create a destabilizing disjunction – what Suzanne Knittel calls the “historical uncanny” – that unsettles and stands in the way of a Polish reconciliation with its Jewish past.

Keywords:

Holocaust Memory; Jews; Poland; Warsaw; Lublin; Muranow; Majdanek

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Chamberland, L., & Tesler-Mabé, H. (2021). Horrific Pasts and Mundane Presents: Living among the Jewish Ghosts of Warsaw and Lublin. Christianity-World-Politics, (25). https://doi.org/10.21697/CSP.2021.25.1.13

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