Czyim dziedzictwem są brzozy? Wokół pracy Berlin-Birkenau Łukasza Surowca
Whose Heritage Are Birches? Around Łukasz Surowiec’s Berlin-Birkenau Project

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses Łukasz Surowiec’s Berlin-Birkenau project under which the artistplanted in Berlin several hundred birches from the area around the Auschwitz-Birkenaucamp. The goal of the work defined by the artist was to create living monuments ofthe Holocaust and to propose the changes in the dynamics of Polish-German relations. In thearticle, I propose interpreting Surowiec’s work through the symbolic role of birches inthe history of Polish culture and environmental history of the Holocaust. Such interpretationreveals the ambiguity of the gesture of replanting trees, the inability to classify it as an act ofgiving responsibility to the Germans or Polish-German reconciliation.

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