Jews and Germans in Polish collective memory. Two case studies of memory formation in local communities after WWII

该项目分析了在当今波兰的两个特定城镇：杰尔佐尼奥和拉西博尔茨构建犹太人和德国人记忆的过程。这一主题的重要性怎么估计都不为过：犹太人和德国人在波兰历史、文化以及集体记忆中发挥了关键作用。这两个群体在波兰社会的意识中以及在大众和学术话语中都有很强的代表性。然而，这种记忆是如何出现的，它是如何变化的，它与社会进程如何相关，以及它今天是如何构建的，这些问题仍然是开放的。主要目的是研究特定社会条件和集体记忆形式之间的关系。我们计划调查的机制，使过去是目前在集体记忆和塑造其形式和内容。通过这样做，该项目有助于记忆研究的进一步方法发展。沃尔夫·坎施泰纳（Wulf Kansteiner）在他对记忆研究的批评中写道：人文学科的记忆浪潮促成了文化史令人印象深刻的复兴，但记忆研究的成功并没有伴随着集体记忆过程研究的重大概念和方法论进步。我们希望通过这个项目来填补这一空白。这两个小城镇的历史Dzierzoniow和Raciborz和他们以前和现在的民族结构，以及转型和欧洲一体化的波兰自1989年以来构成的背景下，集体记忆的研究。这使得我们有可能解释从共产主义制度到后共产主义制度的转变过程中集体记忆的转变。通过关注当地社区，我们也问这样一个问题，即当地社区的历史是否可以提供新的视角和认识论的替代方案，以主导的想象或主叙事的记忆研究和波兰的史学，因为当地的视角超越了既定的学科，文化或国家边界。这种观点也挑战了人文学科中使用的一些静态概念和类别。因此，我们期待着新的发现，不仅在建设和转换的过程中的记忆，而且在概念本身。

The project analyzes the process of constructing the memory of Jews and Germans in two specific towns in today´s Poland: Dzierzoniow and Raciborz. The significance of this topic can hardly be overestimated: Jews and Germans played a key role in Polish history, culture and consequently also in collective memory. Both groups are strongly present in the consciousness of Polish society and in popular as well as academic discourse. And yet, the question how this memory emerged, how it changed, how it is related to social processes and how it is constructed today, is still open. The main aim is to examine the relations between specific social conditions and forms of collective memories. We plan to investigate the mechanisms that allow the past to be present in collective memory and shape its form and content. By doing so, the project contributes to a further methodological development of memory research. Wulf Kansteiner wrote in his critique of memory studies: The memory wave in the humanities has contributed to the impressive revival of cultural history, but the success of memory studies has not been accompanied by significant conceptual and methodological advances in the research of collective memory processes. With this project we intend to fill this gap. The history of the two small towns Dzierzoniow and Raciborz and their former and current ethnic structure as well as the transformation and European integration of Poland since 1989 constitute the background against which collective memory will be researched. This makes it possible to explain shifts in collective memory during the transformation from a communist to a post-communist system. By focusing on local communities we also ask the question, whether the history of local communities can offer new perspectives and epistemological alternatives to dominant imaginations or master-narratives in memory studies and the historiography of Poland, since the perspective of the local goes beyond established disciplinary, cultural or national boundaries. This perspective also challenges some static concepts and categories used in the humanities. Therefore, we expect new findings not only on the processes of construction and transformation of memory, but also on the concept itself.