Polish memory of the Holocaustin the 21st century: the art of remembering and forgetting

Ongoing discussion on collective memory in contemporary Poland requires constant efforts to define and redefi ne the objects under dispute, particularly in reference to the Holocaust and the SecondWorld War. What requires such redefi nition is the very area to be scrutinized and the basic terminologyto be implemented, with the necessity to discriminate between collective memory shapedby offi cial historical policy, collective memory shaped by historians, writers and artists, alongsidethe offi cially sanctioned memory. The question arises whether the memory shaped by historians,writers and artists forms an alternative to the offi cially canonized variant and whether in these circumstanceswe keep looking at distinct, mutually exclusive memories.