Klimat odwilży. Obrazy Marka Oberländera
The Climate of Polish October

Summary/Abstract: Posing the problem of the epistemological climate of the Polish October, Słodkowskiasks to what extent testifying to the Holocaust could gain popularity in paintings of thePolish October period and to what extent the culture of that time did not translate intoa rekindling of Holocaust memory. I relate this problem to fragments of work by thePolish-Jewish painter Marek Oberländer (1922–1978), analyzing them through the prismof Oberländer’s comments, which have not been used in research before. The article aimsto revise the image of the Polish October period and consider the era in terms of topdownand bottom-up opportunities to testify to the Second World War. Moreover, thetext stems from the conviction that a reflection on how Oberländer’s visual testimoniesfit into established rituals of commemoration can enrich the abundant sociohistoricalstudies of wartime memory in communist Poland and support the project of art historyas part of the interdisciplinary study of the cultural consequences of the Holocaust.

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