The Warsaw Rising Museum: Polish Identity and Memory of World War II
The Warsaw Rising Museum: Polish Identity and Memory of World War II

Summary/Abstract: Collective memory is a vision of the past which molds social identity. It is constantly in flux–formed not only by historical events, but also current interests. Monuments and museums, as well as social rituals and practices (ceremonies or commemorative anniversaries) comprise the material structure whose analysis provides an opportunity to explore and examine collective memory and to reconstruct the changes which have taken place therein. During the communist regime as well as nowadays, the memory of World War II has been fundamental to Polish identity. The totalitarian regime had thoroughly planned and realized the material and physical landscape of collective memory on a grand scale; the image of the past which it wanted to make available in the social imagination was simple and very clearly defined.

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