Widzieć historię w teraźniejszości. Refleksje nad pojęciem „skażonych krajobrazów”
Seeing History in the Present: Reflections on the Concept of “Contaminated Landscapes”

Summary/Abstract: The essay takes the 2014 book Kontaminierte Landschaften [Contaminated Landscapes] by the Austrian journalist and writer Martin Pollack as an opportunity to explore relationships between landscapes, (marked) places, and memory. In considering the relationship between the metaphorical (literary) image of contaminated landscapes and the actual crime scenes, I focus on the mass shootings of Jews by the German Nazis and their local supporters in the former Soviet Union. These specific crime scenes are used to explore the limits of Pollack’s metaphor and the problems it causes. The central arguments are presented using concrete examples provided by seven photographs.

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