My time in Krakow allowed me to see that Poland itself has a unique historical narrative because two totalitarian regimes occupied the nation in the span of a few years. I tried to look at how they tell their history now through the sites we visited. In our class this past semester, we discussed current events in each of the four countries for the program. In Poland’s case, our topics of discussion circled around its government’s recent laws that prohibit people from saying or implying that Poland collaborated with the Nazis. I almost was looking for changes that indicated that they had manipulated their narrative in response to the law. However, nothing has changed drastically yet in terms of this law. Auschwitz-Birkenau and Oskar Schindler’s old factory, which functions as the exhibition showcasing Krakow under Nazi rule, helped explain Poland’s national character currently, particularly with their version of WWII.
At Auschwitz and Birkenau, the museum regulates tours with their own hired guides, rather than allowing us to have a tour run by our own translator. The tour was also timed, demonstrating their control of how they share the history of both camps. Viewing both of the concentration camps was overwhelming, because much of it remains as it was when the Soviets liberated them in January 1945. This sameness was especially apparent at Birkenau, where there are still just chimneys from where buildings once stood before the Nazis tried to destroy them, and there are still railroad tracks going through the main entrance. Another interesting aspect of both places was the way they tell Jewish and Polish history. They make a conscious distinction between all Jews and Poles, rarely using the phrase Polish Jews. This distinction indicated to me a nationalistic viewpoint for the Poles, in which they want to remind visitors to these museums of the persecution of Poles, such as Polish political prisoners. It was odd that they did not denote Jews who were also Poles specifically, but I believe it was to clarify why Nazis sent them to Auschwitz. The guides often talked about the Poles themselves, showing that a huge part of their personal narrative was how Nazi occupation affected the entire Polish population.
The distinction between Poles and Jews was not so clear in Oskar Schindler’s old enamel factory. There, it was about all of the Poles and how they had to handle the Nazi occupation. Oskar Schindler was part of the Nazi party and employed about 1,200 Jews in his enamel factory, saving their lives in the process. In the old factory, they have placed a museum devoted to life in Krakow in WWII. It was most beneficial to see the exhibition “Krakow under Nazi Occupation” because it offered a closer insight into the people of Krakow’s occupation by the Nazis, not something that you would be taught in a regular WWII class. In it, they share photos, documents, and personal stories that I had never seen before of what it was like in Krakow during the war. Upon contextualizing the information within this museum to my wealth of knowledge of WWII, it was easier to understand Poland’s struggle to come to terms with what happened during the war. According to the museum, Polish Jews from Krakow were either outright killed or died immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. The numbers they gave for this fact do not include the murders of Jews from other Polish towns and of other non-Jewish Poles who went to camps or died at the hands of the Nazis. Poles dealt with both Nazi and Soviet occupation and terror in a short span of time and rightfully so, view themselves as victims in those cases. However, in all the places our class visited while in Poland, there was no acceptance or admission to any type of collaboration. This lack of information shows that while the official Holocaust law is new, refusing to accept that at least some Poles collaborated with the Nazis is not simply a contemporary issue that the nation is only facing now.