Representations of Holocaust protagonists in history education in Polish primary schools under the rule of the Law and Justice party

ABSTRACT

This article examines how the ‘historical policy’ of the Law and Justice party influenced Holocaust education in Poland at the mandatory primary school level (7–14-year-olds). It analyzes the party’s programs vis-à-vis the Holocaust and the representations of Holocaust protagonists – perpetrators, victims, and others – in the history core curriculum, history textbooks, and teaching practice as presented by teachers in interviews. The analysis shows that the representations of Holocaust protagonists in Polish primary school history education are considerably influenced by the nationalist approach originating from the ruling party's ‘historical policy’ and stressing the salvation of Jews from the Holocaust by Poles.

KEYWORDS:

• Holocaust education
• Holocaust protagonists
• history textbooks
• history teaching
• Poland
• the Law and Justice party’s ‘historical policy’

Acknowledgement

The authors thank anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Program Prawa i Sprawiedliwości 2019, 182. Available at: http://pis.org.pl/files/Program_PIS_2019.pdf (Accessed on December 22, 2022).

Program Prawa i Sprawiedliwości 2014, 241. Available at: http://pis.org.pl/media/download/528ca7b35234fd7dba8c1e567fe729741baaaf33.pdf (Accessed on December 22, 2022).

2 Program Prawa i Sprawiedliwości 2014, 129–34; Ustawa z dnia 14 grudnia 2016 r. Prawo oświatowe. Available at: https://www.dziennikustaw.gov.pl/du/2017/59 (Accessed on December 22, 2022).

3 Rozporządzenie Ministra Edukacji Narodowej z dnia 14 lutego 2017 r. w sprawie podstawy programowej wychowania przedszkolnego oraz podstawy programowej kształcenia ogólnego dla szkoły podstawowej. Available at: https://dziennikustaw.gov.pl/du/2017/356 (Accessed on December 22, 2022). Rozporządzenie Ministra Edukacji Narodowej z dnia 30 stycznia 2018 r. w sprawie podstawy programowej kształcenia ogólnego dla liceum ogólnokształcącego, technikum oraz branżowej szkoły II stopnia. Available at: https://www.dziennikustaw.gov.pl/DU/2018/467 (Accessed on December 22, 2022).

4 Rozporządzenie … 2017, 100.

5 Rozporządzenie … 2018, 130.

6 Radonić, Our’ vs. ‘Inherited’ Museums, 44–78. Hackmann, Defending the ‘Good Name’ of the Polish Nation, 587–606. Jan Grabowski and Dariusz Libionka, Distorting and rewriting the history of the Holocaust in Poland, 29–60.

7 See: Kończal, Politics of Innocence. Avaiable at:https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2021.1968147. (Accessed on December 22, 2022). Kończal, Siegfried Huigen, and Dorota Kołodziejczyk, Mnemonic Populism, 457–69. David Cadier and Kacper Szulecki, Populism, historical discourse and foreign policy, 990–1011.

8 Jaskułowski, Majewski and Surmiak, Teaching History. Żuk, Nation, national remembrance, and education, 1048–62.

9 See: Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, The uses and the Abuses of Education, 329–50. Bobryk and Strobel, History Textbooks in Poland since 1989. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs and Szuchta, The Intricacies of Education, 283–95. Gross, Rewriting the Nation, 213–47. Szuchta, Zagłada Żydów w edukacji szkolnej, 109–28.

10 Ambrosewicz-Jacobs and Buttner, Isolated Islands? 81–106. Gross, No longer estranged, 131–49.

11 Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders.

12 Morina and Thijs, Probing the Limits of Categorization. Fulbrook, Bystanders: Catchall Concept, 15–35.

13 Hilberg, Sprawcy, ofiary, świadkowie.

14 See: Gross, Sprawcy, ofiary i inni, p.885. Janicka, Pamięć przyswojona p.165.

15 Gross, Sprawcy, ofiary i inni, 885–8.

16 Furber and Lower, Colonialism and Genocide, 392–93.

17 King, Can There Be a Political Science of the Holocaust?, 323–41.

18 Forecki, Reconstructing Memory.

19 Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej.

20 Doroszewski, Słownik języka polskiego.

21 Kwiatkowski, Nijakowski and Szacka, Między codziennością a wielką historią.

22 Ambrosewicz-Jacobs and Szuchta, The Intricacies.

23 Błoński, Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto, Avaiable at: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1rmh41 (Accessed on December 22, 2022).

24 Gross, Sąsiedzi.

25 Polonsky and Michlic, The Neighbors Respond.

26 See: https://www.holocaustresearch.pl/index.php?show=162 (Accessed on December 22, 2022).

27 Grabowski and Engelking, Dalej jest noc.

28 Jastrzębska and Żurawski, Historia. Podręcznik dla klasy 8. Kalwat and Szlanda, Historia. Podręcznik. Klasa 8. Śniegocki and Zielinska, Wczoraj i dziś. Klasa 8. Małkowski, Historia 8. Podróże w czasie.

29 The number of interviews, not very high as for qualitative research, was limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the reluctance of many teachers to participate at the research. The interviews by no means give a representative picture of history teaching practice in Polish schools. Nor do they allow us for an analysis according to social-demographic characteristics of interviewees. However, they did provide valuable qualitative data which could be used in this article.

30 The database of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, our foremost recruitment resource, was very helpful. However, it does not consist of a random selection of Polish teachers. It contains teachers concerned with Holocaust education, which was both an advantage and a limitation of our research.

31 PAP, Kaczyński zapowiada aktywną politykę historyczną. Avaiable at: https://dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/kaczynski-zapowiada-aktywna-polityke-historyczna (Accessed on December 22, 2022)

32 Program … 2014, 27, 141–2

33 Ibid., 27.

34 Ibid., 141.

35 Pasikowski, Pokłosie

36 Program … 2014, 27.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Program …  2019, 182.

41 Ibid.

42 Rozporządzenie … 2017, 100.

43 Ibid.

44 The term ‘extermination camps’ rather than ‘killing centers’ is used from this point on to render the Polish term ‘obozy zagłady’ like in the documents of the Polish government-in-exile from 1942 in reference to Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, see: The Mass Extermination of Jews in German occupied Poland.

45 ‘Religious and ethnic relations’ in the First Republic (16th century) and ‘the social, ethnic, and religious structure of the Polish state’ for the Second Republic (1918–1939), Rozporządzenie … , 96, 99.

46 ‘Civilizations of the Ancient East (Mesopotamia, Egypt and Israel)’ and ‘the religion of ancient Israel,’ Ibid., 93.

47 Gross, Rewriting, 236.

48 Two photographs are used. One represents Czesława Kwoka, a Polish girl from the Zamość region. The other shows Jewish children behind barbed wire.

49 Gross, Rewriting, 227.

50 Szuchta, Zagłada Żydów w edukacji szkolnej.

51 Ignatiew, Findings of Investigation S 1/00/Zn, 133–6.

52 Szuchta, Zagłada Żydów. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs and Szuchta, The Intricacies.

53 The latter is consistent with the findings of Jaskułowski, Majewski and Surmiak, Teaching History. The study showed that most teachers reproduce the dominant nationalist structures using history lessons. Our research revealed that this reproduction is more substantial when teachers’ beliefs are consistent with the nationalist policy narration.

54 This finding is coherent with those of Maitles and Cowan, Teaching the Holocaust in Primary Schools in Scotland, 263–71.

Additional information

Funding

This work was done as part of the research project ‘Auschwitz in the social memory of Poles 75 years on’ no. 2018/29/B/HS6/02133 financed from the resources of the National Science Centre, Poland.

Notes on contributors

Katarzyna Stec

Katarzyna Stec An assistant professor at the Institute of Sociology of Jagiellonian University in Kraków and post-doctoral researcher in the ‘Auschwitz in the social memory of Poles 75 years on’ project. She has published on the memory of the Holocaust and Holocaust education, focusing on the social role and symbolism of museums – memorial sites of former Nazi camps.

Sylwia Sadlik

Sylwia Sadlik A PhD student at the Institute of Sociology of Jagiellonian University in Kraków and a PhD stipend holder in the ‘Auschwitz in the social memory of Poles 75 years on’ project. Her academic interests center on memory studies, particularly on the politics of memory between Poles and Jews after World War II.

Marek Kucia

Marek Kucia A professor of social sciences at the Institute of Sociology of Jagiellonian University in Kraków and the principal investigator of the ‘Auschwitz in the social memory of Poles 75 years on’ project. He has led numerous research projects on the Polish, European, and global memory of Auschwitz and the Holocaust. He has published widely on the topics of his research in English, German, Hebrew, Lithuanian, and Polish.