Competition of Memories? The Memory of the Łódź/Litzmannstadt Ghetto in Contemporary Museums in Łódź

Abstract

There is no individual museum dedicated to the Łódź Ghetto in which 200,000 Jews were confined. However, there are institutions actively working to preserve the memory of the Jewish community in Łódź. This article focuses on two recently established museums in the city: the Radegast Station, founded in 2009, and the Museum of Polish Children, established in 2021. The aim is to analyze the mechanisms that led to the creation of these historical museums and explore their specific functions. I am interested not only in how these institutions shape and present the Jewish heritage, but also in the conceptualisation of the social role of these institutions and the analysis of their presence in the public space. To achieve this, I examine local micro-interactions within the current framework of Poland’s politics of history. Given that nationalism is the predominant ideology of modernity, my text demonstrates how nationalist discourses impact the commemoration of the Łódź/Litzmannstadt Ghetto and influence the remembrance of Second World War.