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Short Abstract

Łomża Scientific Society translates Jewish memorial books (Pinkasim) and engages Catholic seniors to document environmental changes in the same locations. This citizen science approach transforms contested Polish-Jewish heritage into collaborative knowledge production about shared landscapes.

Abstract

The Łomża region before 1939 was inhabited by Polish and Jewish communities. Łomża Scientific Society translates Pinkasim—Jewish memorial books containing everyday descriptions: local apple varieties, water mills, marketplaces. These concrete place descriptions became the starting point for the "Memory Maps" project.

The project engages Catholic parish senior groups in documenting these same places today. Seniors describe which orchards were cut for Via Baltica highway, where ponds dried, which plants disappeared after dairy farming intensification. They collect local plant names, regional fruit varieties, recall vanished wetlands.

The methodology combines Pinkasim texts, contemporary observations, historical maps, archival interviews, photographs. Biology students and researchers verify species, geography students with professors create GIS maps, historians contextualize changes. Seniors validate ecological data through decades of place-based knowledge. The project includes GIS training for local schools, transforming participants into knowledge creators with transferable skills.

This methodology shifts heritage work from ownership disputes to empirical documentation. Residents of contested sites like Jedwabne (where Polish neighbors killed Jews in 1941) contribute environmental data without navigating identity politics. By tracking vanishing apple cultivars mentioned in both Pinkasim and seniors' accounts, the project creates botanical genealogies that bypass political ones.

The paper presents insights transferable to other post-conflict regions: how environmental documentation provides ethical entry points to contested memories, how skill-sharing creates stakeholder investment beyond participation, and how focusing on material change rather than narrative reconciliation enables communities to engage difficult pasts through concrete, collaborative action.