Dwie strony pomnika
Two Sides of a Monument

Summary/Abstract: The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw has two sides – Struggle and the Holocaust Procession. The monument in question links the topos of Procession and Funeral Procession, but it is “Struggle” that is selected as the site of social practices. The author of the article wonders whether both this and other monuments are helpful for working through trauma or negate loss by concealing their “other side”. The fundamental question asks: “Can commemoration fulfil a function concurrent with the term ‘memory site’, change the ‘non-represented’ into a symbol and thus lead towards integration of experience?”. Social and personal experience shows that memory sites can be of help in making contact with a traumatic event, but ultimately the process of social working through is a sum of individual processes of integrating traumatic experience.

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