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

该项目分析了在今天波兰S的两个特定城镇：齐尔佐尼奥夫和拉西博尔茨构建犹太人和德国人记忆的过程。这一专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、文化和集体记忆中发挥了关键作用。这两个群体都强烈地存在于波兰社会的意识中，以及大众和学术话语中。然而，这种记忆是如何出现的，它是如何变化的，它与社会过程是如何相关的，它是如何构建的，这个问题仍然悬而未决。主要目的是考察特定社会条件和集体记忆形式之间的关系。我们计划研究允许过去存在于集体记忆中并塑造其形式和内容的机制。通过这样做，该项目有助于进一步发展记忆研究的方法论。Wulf Kansteiner在他的《记忆研究评论》中写道：人文科学中的记忆浪潮为令人印象深刻的文化史复兴做出了贡献，但记忆研究的成功并没有伴随着集体记忆过程研究在概念和方法上的重大进步。通过这个项目，我们打算填补这一空白。齐耶尔佐尼奥夫和拉西博尔茨两个小镇的历史及其以前和现在的民族结构，以及自以来波兰的转型和欧洲一体化，构成了集体记忆研究的背景。这使得解释从共产主义体制向后共产主义体制转变过程中集体记忆的变化成为可能。通过关注地方社区，我们还提出了这样一个问题：地方社区的历史是否可以提供新的视角和认识论替代记忆研究和波兰史学中的主导想象或大师叙事，因为地方的视角超越了既定的学科、文化或国家界限。这一视角也对人文学科中使用的一些静态概念和范畴提出了挑战。因此，我们期待的不仅是关于记忆的构建和转化过程的新发现，而且还有关于概念本身的新发现。

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.