Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the ways in which the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is musealizing the difficult Polish-Jewish past. Three strategies will be foregrounded. They include activities in which Jews and non Jewish Poles work together to create inclusive communities around producing and maintaining Polish Jewish history.

Paper long abstract:

Warsaw's Museum of the History of Polish Jews, scheduled for completion in late 2012, was conceived in the mid 1990s by two Polish Jewish historians. The early years of the project's development were difficult, and support for the project was disappointing. But in 2006, with a commitment by the Polish government and the city of Warsaw to provide $38.5 million, an architectural plan, and an established Jewish curator from New York, work began on the concrete structure, the permanent exhibit, and outreach programs. This paper will examine the ways in which the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is musealizing the difficult Polish-Jewish past. Three strategies will be foregrounded. The first is the museum's refusal to make the Holocaust the organizational center of the historical narrative. The second is the project of having students, artisans and volunteers in eight communities in Poland rebuild the painted ceiling of a destroyed eighteenth-century wooden synagogue which will be one of the major installations. The third strategy is the creation of two internet portals which allow users to upload, download and share information about Polish Jewish history and to make contact with each other. The paper will conclude that, through these activities, the MHPJ is creating a redemptive space in which Jews and non Jewish Poles, who have a painful and burdened shared past, work together to create inclusive communities around producing and maintaining Polish Jewish history.