Keywords
World War II
Holocaust
Poland
Symbol
Issue of Guilt
Memory Politics
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper offers a critical view of the processes of memory in Europe and the narratives of such events, as this can become a benchmark and a guideline for critical historiographic reflection on the violent events of the past, and how they are preserved and transmitted. The text states that the academic field constantly uses a repetition of the war scheme, which is too limited and unfair, and barely relates to historical facts. Believing that memory research is not a rigorous historical approach, and reflecting on the representations of events neglecting their origin, does not constitute an assessment tool and can lead to the wrong conclusions. This paper particularly examines the case of concentration camps, the role of Germany and Russia, the guilt issue connected with memory politics, the epidemic of mechanical repetition in academic texts, or the idea of «replacing a historical model for a memorial model» (Rabotnikof).
The journal Memoria y Sociedad is registered under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License. Thus, this work may be reproduced, distributed, and publicly shared in digital format, as long as the names of the authors and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana are acknowledged. Others are allowed to quote, adapt, transform, auto-archive, republish, and create based on this material, for any purpose (even commercial ones), provided the authorship is duly acknowledged, a link to the original work is provided, and it is specified if changes have been made. Pontificia Universidad Javeriana does not hold the rights of published works and the authors are solely responsible for the contents of their works; they keep the moral, intellectual, privacy, and publicity rights.
Approving the intervention of the work (review, copy-editing, translation, layout) and the following outreach, are granted through an use license and not through an assignment of rights. This means the journal and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana cannot be held responsible for any ethical malpractice by the authors. As a consequence of the protection granted by the use license, the journal is not required to publish recantations or modify information already published, unless the errata stems from the editorial management process. Publishing contents in this journal does not generate royalties for contributors.