In the decades after World War II, Polish-Jewish history was kept in what scholars call “the communist freezer.” Some 3 million Jews—90% of the country’s Jewish population—were murdered by the Nazis.
But it wasn’t until after the fall of communism in 1989 that Poland began to discuss how to deal with the legacy of the Holocaust. That includes one of the most uncomfortable facts of Poland’s wartime history: that some Poles collaborated with the Nazis in the killing of Jews.
Today, that reckoning is being shut down under the nationalist government of Poland’s Law and Justice party and through state-affiliated institutions. Chiefly, that includes the Institute of National Remembrance, or IPN in Polish, a one-of-a-kind bureaucratic creation that encompasses many disparate entities: Poland’s most prolific publisher of historical texts, a prosecutor’s office, a production house of historical films and games, and a major authority shaping what students are taught about history in school.
Read more about Poland’s expanding “Ministry of Memory” at the link in bio. Photo-illustration by @rafal.milach—@magnumphotos
