Corresponding author: Aleksandra Janus ( aleksandrajanusss@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Ihab Saloul
© 2021 Aleksandra Janus.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Janus A (2021) Vernacular memory and implicated communities. International Journal of Heritage, Memory and Conflict 1: 45-53. https://doi.org/10.3897/hmc.1.63428
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Abandoned sites of trauma in Poland appear to be forgotten, but their removal from social and cultural circles is only superficial. Frequently, these sites are inscribed into the local culture of memory and members of the local Polish communities can usually locate them and share stories about them. However, as they are not commemorated, there is an ambivalent aura around them. In 2017 two foundations (Zapomniane Foundation, The Matzevah Foundation) carried out an intervention into the landscape of Poland by marking thirty burial sites of Jewish victims of the Holocaust with simple wooden markers. The effects of that intervention shed light on the vernacular local memory of the Holocaust and the folk-traditional roots of the practices and behaviors related to these sites.
heritage, Holocaust, memory, non-sites of memory
It is difficult to estimate how many unmarked sites of the deposition of the remains of Jewish Holocaust victims are located in Poland, especially in its southern and eastern parts, where the so-called “Holocaust by bullets” took place (Desbois 2009). In recent years, researchers have drawn attention to the fact that both the structure of this phenomenon and its remains in the landscape and local memory cultures differ from the image of the Holocaust as identified with ghettos, deportations and death camps.
This article is an attempt to analyze a commemorative project carried out in 2017 by two organizations: the Zapomniane (Forgotten) Foundation – a Jewish foundation established by members of the Rabbinic Commission for Jewish cemeteries in Poland (RCC) and The Matzevah Foundation – an American foundation devoted to the preservation of Jewish heritage in Poland. The aim of the project was to intervene in the landscape of Lublin region and Lesser Poland by placing symbolic wooden markers in the form of a matzevot in places of unmarked burial sites of Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Although such sites appear to be abandoned and forgotten (they are not commemorated or marked, often neglected, littered, forsaken), it seems that their removal from social and cultural circles is only superficial. Although members of the local communities (homogeneously Polish) are not always able to locate them precisely, those sites are frequently inscribed into the local culture of memory, albeit not in an obvious manner. Within the research team of the project Uncommemorated Genocide Sites, we refer to them as non-sites of memory (
The basic indicator is lack of information (altogether or of proper, founded information), of material forms of commemoration (plaques, monuments, museums), and of delimitation (any official designation of the scope of the territory in question). Non-sites of memory also have in common the past or continued presence of human remains (bodies of deceased persons) that has not been neutralized by funerary rites. These sites do not, meanwhile, share physical characteristics: they may be extensive or centered, urban or rural, though they are often characterized by some variety of physical blending of the organic order (human remains, plants, animals) and to the inorganic order (ruins, new construction). The victims who should be commemorated on such sites typically have a collective identity (usually ethnic) distinct from the society currently living in the area, whose self-conception is threatened by the occurrence of the non-site of memory. Such localities are transformed, manipulated, neglected, or contested in some other way (often devastated or littered), the resultant forsaking of memorialization leading to ethnically problematic revitalization that draws criticism (Sendyka 2016, 14).
Their paradoxical status is important from the point of view of the subject of this article – these are places that are remembered, but not commemorated; conventional memory practices are not devoted to them, and yet often there are stories about them and related rules of behavior. Unmarked graves undoubtedly belong to this group of sites. At the same time, from the point of view of Jewish law, their status is different from places of violence or, for instance, from abandoned sites of worship. Because there are human remains deposited in them, they require special protection – like cemeteries. According to Jewish religious law it is forbidden to violate the burial site. As the Jerusalem Talmud states: “It is forbidden to move the dead and their bones from the place where they rest” (Jerusalem Talmud, Moed Katan 2:4). Locating and marking them is therefore important not only as a gesture of commemoration, but also as a way of informing people that there are human remains in this place and that it should not be disturbed. According to the guidelines of the Rabbinical Commission for Jewish Cemeteries, the remains should not be moved or tampered with, which excludes exhumation. As exhumation is only allowed in Judaism in exceptional cases (including the threat from natural factors, e.g. a flooding river, however, the key is to be able to carry out careful and thorough exhumation, which is impossible if the remains are not in the form of a complete skeleton, see: Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 363: 1), from the point of view of halakha, protection of remains from any possible interference is ever more important. Therefore, investigation of such sites using non-invasive archaeological methods is preferred, and great importance is attached to the most precise and accurate delimitation of grave boundaries (
The need for this kind of act was the starting point for the project that is analyzed in this article. In 2017, I accompanied the members of both foundations in their work in the course of the project, making observations and conducting interviews. Taking into account the estimates of the possible number of sites with this status in Poland – according to the RCC around a thousand – and being aware of the costs and amount of work potentially involved in the preparation of permanent commemoration, the Zapomniane Foundation and The Matzevah Foundation decided to look for a formula that would make it possible to mark such sites on a wider scale, an intermediate solution, not excluding or replacing commemoration, but rather facilitating it (Zapomniane 2017).
Looking for a form and shape of a marker to be located at the sites of thus far unmarked graves, the team tried to ensure that the interference it would cause in the landscape was modest. Marking was primarily intended to have an informative function – to provide information about a given place and legitimize it in the eyes of those who know its character – as most of the locals know about it even if they do not know of it. Jonathan Webber points out the precision and certainty with which representatives of local communities are able to indicate the location of a Jewish cemetery, although at present there is only an empty, overgrown area (
Wooden markers in the form of matzevot were placed in places previously examined by the Zapomniane Foundation in close cooperation with the Rabbinical Commission for Jewish Cemeteries (RCC). Since the traditional tools of archaeology are excluded due to the obligations of Jewish religious law (halakha) in such locations, the RCC and the Foundation used the tools and methods of non-invasive archaeology, including archival research, testimonies, analysis of satellite photography and archival aerial photos, topographical analysis with the use of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and geophysical tools (like georadar) that facilitate the identification of anomalies located under the surface of the soil. In autumn 2017, thirty previously studied sites of the deposition of human remains of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were marked (until August 2020, both foundations had marked 50 sites in total). The sites were located in different surroundings, forests, fields and towns. Among them, there were 12 sites located in built-up/inhabited areas (of which 2 are on the grounds of former cemeteries, which today are rather undeveloped space), 5 are located on the grounds of marked or fenced Jewish cemeteries and 13 are located deep in the woods. While some markers became immediately visible to the residents of a place, others may not have been noticed. Some of them constituted an additional element of the existing memory infrastructure concerning the Holocaust (e.g. an existing monument located far from the burial site itself
During subsequent visits conducted in spring 2018 to the twelve selected sites, I noted that none of the markers in the sites had been removed. This is not surprising in places far from inhabited areas. Perhaps nobody, or only a few people, have had the opportunity to see/encounter them. However, among the more visible places, there were those where a wooden marker could be an obstruction (e.g. it was very close to the road), as well as those where there seemed to be consent to littering and acts of vandalism (alcohol is consumed at one of the unfenced, unmarked cemeteries, garbage is thrown away, etc.). When analyzing the effects of this intervention, the first question that came to my mind was: what caused the markers to remain in place after nearly a year? Currently, I have adopted two main working hypotheses concerning the permanence of markers in places where their removal or destruction was, in my opinion, most likely. The first refers to the taboo associated with a burial site, the second to the relationship of the marker with other, unambiguously Catholic, “domesticated” common gestures in the surrounding space.
Places which were marked with wooden matzevot most often functioned – in a particular manner, typical for non-sites of memory – in the consciousness of the local community as burial sites. The way they are treated is typical for the perception of space – in any case never homogenous – by religious and traditional communities. In folk cultures, space is divided into specific zones, which are reflected in the principles of proxemics and specific sets of behaviors (
It should be noted that in many cases the cultural taboo did not protect either the Jewish graves themselves, or the tombstones that marked them. There are historically known cases of deliberate violation of burial sites and human remains/ashes deposits in post-war Poland described by researchers (inter alia:
In contemporary Poland, the protective aspect of the taboo seems to be restored to some extent, even while there is a sense of public denial about Polish involvement and complicity in the Holocaust (which can be observed as a reoccurring outcry accompanying publications of books that bring up the subject, e.g. Gross 2000) and while the practices of desecrating the remains are not unequivocally condemned by those who participated in it, and their descendants (
The second hypothesis is related to the possible relationship between a wooden matzevah and the gesture, common in Poland, of placing wooden crosses not only at burial sites, but also at places of death – as, for example, in the case of marking the places of road accidents. Crosses at roads and crossroads – irrespective of whether they are a place of worship, a sign of burial site, site of death or a gesture of penance – are a common element of the Polish (and European) landscape. In addition to crucifixes as chapels and crucifies on graves or as markers of the place of death, also penitential crucifixes were widespread in Europe (
− Why do you call it a cross?
− And how are we supposed to call it?
− But there is no cross there.
− But for us it is a cross. Just as if it were a Polish cross (…). For me it is the same. I know it has a different name, but I don’t know that name. Anyone will tell you that there is a cross there.
− In Jewish tradition a gravestone is called a matzevah (…).
− And we call it a cross. But not our cross, the Jewish cross.
The relationship between the wooden marker and a “wayside” cross and the taboos related to burial sites might offer an explanation for the fact that none of the 18 markers visited by representatives of both foundations have been destroyed or removed. However, in at least three other locations the marker served as a starting point for commemorative processes. Within a year, two of the marked sites have been transformed into permanent commemorations and one has become the subject of local remembrance practices. In these cases, a key role was played by local networks of activists and the involvement of immediate neighbors of these sites (or property owners). In the case of Karmanowice and Rogalów, two towns near Nałęczów, the very placement of a matzevot sparked the interest of people involved in the study of local history – representatives of the local community were present on the spot, including a person who indicated the burial site; a two-part radio report on the subject was also created (aired on the Polish Radio Lublin). In Brzesko, thanks to the involvement of a local activist of memory, a plaque with the names and surnames of the victims – Cyla and Mundek Strauber – was placed on a wooden matzevot. The marker has also become an integral part of the Brzesko march of memory. In both cases, it was the local actors who gathered knowledge about the victims and the circumstances of their death. Thanks to a local activist, a school friend of one of the victims took part in the ceremony accompanying the unveiling of the monument in Karmanowice. Thanks to another one, the circumstances of death of Cyla and Mundek Strauber are known, remembered and reported by a schoolmate of Cyla. In the case of all three sites, the marker, in a sense, helped to “bring out” local knowledge. The temporary nature of the intervention may contribute to focusing local initiatives and act as a catalyst for locally conducted research, activities and commemoration practices. It is a gesture which, since it is not a proper commemoration, does not relieve the local community of other obligations, nor does it impose ready-made forms and discourses. At the same time, it opens up room for action, leaving space for one’s own agency and offering the opportunity to take responsibility for the commemoration process to the extent that is possible locally.
Following the suggestion of Barbara
Given the complex status of non-sites of memory, they appear to be something that is inherited in a sense of being left behind by those who were here before us, but for at least two reasons are not perceived as part of us. First of all, they (both victims and perpetrators) were members of other groups (the Jews, the Germans / the Nazis). This allows one to create a strong division between our and their legacy, including the legacy of violence. Secondly, even if perpetrators were members of our own community, the community uses various mechanisms to protect its own positive self-image, so in consequence, this is never fully acknowledged. A discourse of “a few bad apples” can serve as an example of such mechanism. Moreover, Andrzej
Consequences of the intervention seem to prove that such gestures can become a tool to open up local knowledge, because the marker itself seems to belong to the same type of practices that vernacular memory favors: it is performative, it is temporary, it is modest, unspectacular. It also seems to fit into the complex memory cultures of communities of implication. Being less than a monument, they leave room for different actors to take action and create the discourse around them. Being vernacular, they facilitate the sharing of local vernacular knowledge. Being temporary, they create space for various stakeholders to negotiate the future of the site. At the same time, this symbolic gesture changes the status of the site, which seems to make it possible to change related practices. Practices of folk-traditional origin neutralizing the ambivalence of non-sites of memory can be replaced by a different system of behaviors, without imposing a national or international memory discourse, thereby letting the community of those who recognize themselves as actors take action.
The articles presented in this issue were prepared within the scope of the project: Uncommemorated Genocide Sites and Their Impact on Collective Memory, Cultural Identity, Ethical Attitudes and Intercultural Relations in Contemporary Poland (Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the National Programme for the Development of Humanities, 2016-2020, registration no 2aH 15 0121 83) developed in the Research Center for Memory Cultures, Faculty of Polish Studies, Jagiellonian University. Principal investigator: Roma Sendyka, team members: Katarzyna Grzybowska, Aleksandra Janus, Karina Jarzyńska, Maria Kobielska, Jacek Małczyński, Jakub Muchowski, Łukasz Posłuszny, Kinga Siewior, Mikołaj Smykowski, Katarzyna Suszkiewicz, Aleksandra Szczepan.