„Gdzież źródło błogosławione, z którego czerpał on swą moc…” Pamięć indywidualna i zbiorowa o Mordechaju Anielewiczu w Polsce w latach 1943–1949
"Where is the blessed source from which he drew his power..." Individual and collective memory of Mordechai Anielewicz in Poland in the years 1943–1949

Summary/Abstract: The goal of the paper is to show how Mordechai Anielewicz, the commander of the Jewish Fighting Organization, was remembered and commemorated immediately after war. The author analyzed grassroots commemorations of Anielewicz (texts written by people who knew him personally) and showed what were their perceptions of Anielewicz at a time when the ghetto uprising did not yet have an established, institutionalized social and political meaning. Secondly, the author focused on the emergence of institutional and collective memory of the leader of the ghetto uprising in the first years after the war. How did stories about him resonate with various postwar political realities of the communist Poland? What were the major narrating patterns along which Anielewicz’s life was rewritten shortly after his death? Analysis of Anielewicz’s ‘afterlife’ is vital for understanding the social, political, and historical meaning of both the figure and the uprising. The article is concentrated on post-war political struggles regarding Anielewicz’s status and his ideological position (the stake was the ‘ownership’ of the hero). By looking closely at the very beginning of the emergence of the myth the author demonstrated what Anielewicz had been embodying for historians, public, and survivors’ community, and how this meaning was being constructed (and manipulated).

• Details
• Contents