W poczuciu niezasłużonej infamii - wstępne wyniki projektu dotyczącego żołnierzy ludowego Wojska Polskiego
Subjected to undiserved infamy - preliminary findings on the People's Troops of Poland

Summary/Abstract: This article presents preliminary findings of the oral history project on the subject of the soldiers of the People’s Troops of Poland. Testimonies of ca. 40 “People’s Poland” veterans were recorded (giving more than 2000 hours of audio recordings). These soldiers fought on the Eastern Front, participating in, among others, the battles of Lenino, Budziszyn, and Berlin. The article describes the interviewed group and defines the method applied when conducting the interviews. It also gives a short account of how the interviewed were conscripted into the People’s army. The main part of the article is devoted to pointing to the similarities in the veterans’ accounts. These common elements include interspersing a personal narrative with a broad historical context, underlining that in their individual actions during the war and after it they encountered situations from which there was no escape, using the propaganda expressions dating back to the times of the Polish People’s Republic, and the feeling of being omitted (as a whole group of veterans of the People’s Troops) from the sphere of historical memory after 1989. In the last part of the article, plans for a monograph based on the project are presented.

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