The Politics of Remembering

By Sarah Vallejo

On our last day in Berlin, I was passing through an unremarkable area when I overheard a tour guide mention it had once been the site of Hitler’s Chancellor House. I was taken aback, amazed by how the Nazi past persists in Berlin despite its ideological and architectural transformations. The city’s past becomes clear if you know what to look for, since visual evidence of this past is not as easy to spot compared to other cities we visited. Decades later, the city is still haunted by its history. I believe the reason for this is that Germany was forced to take responsibility for their role in World War II, while other countries did not experience the same pressures to face their contentious past due to a difference in postwar social and political environments.

In Warsaw, Krakow, and Gdansk, I noticed that most mentions of Poland’s troubled past frame the country in stark terms: victim or underdog. Its complex history seemed stripped down to fit a narrative promoting national unity, a narrative that began under Soviet influence after the war. After Poland’s borders shifted west, the communist government faced the challenge of forging a cohesive national identity^5,6. To unite both the newly gained western regions and the rest of the country, the government created a nationalist narrative that emphasized Nazi Germany as a common enemy⁷. At the same time, the government sought to move away from ethnic distinctions, which meant that discussions of Jewish suffering were suppressed; all wartime losses had to be framed as “Polish” losses⁷. This erasure not only hindered Poland’s ability to reckon with the Holocaust but also allowed Poles to avoid confronting the uncomfortable reality that some Polish citizens had collaborated in persecuting their Jewish neighbors. This Soviet-controlled narrative left no room for Poles to think about the nuances tied to Poland’s occupation during the war or how the country had been both a victim and an oppressor. As a result, Poland was in no position to process their contentious past. Even if people felt they could or wanted to talk about the things that had happened, it was not allowed in the postwar communist environment.

Two experiences from this semester, in Gdansk and Budapest, illustrate the ongoing reluctance of former Eastern Bloc nations to reckon with their past. In Gdansk, we learned of the controversial “Our Boys” exhibit which told the story of Poles who were forced into the Nazi army. The national response to this exhibit was overwhelmingly negative, with many condemning the museum, despite the exhibit making no attempts to glorify these boys or the Nazi Regime⁴. Instead, it intended to highlight a side of Poland’s history that been purposefully forgotten, and to show that many of these boys did not join the German army willingly. The strong reaction to the “Our Boys” exhibit shows how contested historical memory remains in Poland: any attempts to address morally complicated stories are resisted because they disrupt the longstanding narrative of Polish victimhood.

On a personal trip to Budapest, I encountered an official Hungarian memorial called “Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation.” Built in 2014, the memorial shows the angel Gabriel being attacked by an eagle with the year 1944 shackled to its ankle, all set in front of several broken columns². The angel represents Hungary, the eagle represents Germany, and the broken columns parallel Budapest’s famous Heroes’ Square but in destruction. Many in the Jewish community see the memorial as an oversimplified attempt to portray Hungary as powerless and evade responsibility for wartime violence against Jews². In response to this memorial, a “counter-memorial” was placed in front of it by Budapest’s Jewish community. It corrects the official one by stating that almost all who were killed during the occupation were Jewish and that the Hungarian government played a significant role in their suffering with mass killings, pogroms, and ghettos present in Hungary prior to occupation. In placing a counter-memorial here, the Jewish community demands Hungary take accountability for their oppressive role rather than painting itself solely as a victim of Nazi Germany. The deportation of over 430,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz, the largest group there by nationality, would not have been possible without the collaboration of the Hungarian government with the German occupiers³. When viewed alongside postwar Poland’s creation of a national identity centered on victimhood at the hands of Nazi Germany, a larger pattern becomes clear: many countries outside Germany have chosen narratives that highlight their own suffering while obscuring their complicity. While every country struggles to navigate its troubled past, many have opted for avoidance rather than accountability.

In contrast, Germany, and Berlin specifically, has undertaken a much deeper and more public reckoning with its past. To be reaccepted into “civilized European society” and someday be part of a reunified Germany, West Germany was forced to address their role as the perpetrator in the war⁷. Berlin’s commitment to confronting its history, combined with West Germany’s unique postwar position, allowed for greater strides toward accountability. Berlin openly presents its complicated past to those who seek it out without attempting to justify it. The city’s past lingers, waiting for visitors to learn about it while in other cities, the past lingers because it has yet to be dealt with. Former Eastern Bloc countries were not given the same space as West Germany to digest their past, and these differences in postwar environments have caused a ripple effect in how these countries see and understand their past today. Countries previously under Soviet influence are only at the beginning stages of processing the realities of their place in World War II while former West German areas have had a decades-long headstart. As a result, the memory landscapes of Central Europe remain uneven, with some nations still struggling to confront truths that Germany has spent generations reckoning with.

 

Works Cited

1. Porter-Szucs, Brian. Poland in the Modern World : Beyond Martyrdom. Erscheinungsort Nicht Ermittelbar, Verlag Nicht Ermittelbar, 2014, pp. 144–147.
2. “Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation.” Atlas Obscura, 2023, atlasobscura.com/places/german-occupation-memorial-budapest.
3. Golden, Juliet. “World War II Timeline.” HST 481: East Central Europe in the 20th Century Lecture, Syracuse Abroad, 16 Sept. 2025.
4. Polskie Radio. “WWII Wehrmacht conscription exhibit sparks political row in Poland.” Polskie Radio English Section, 15 July 2025, www.polskieradio.pl/395/7791/artykul/3551362,wwii-wehrmacht-conscription-exhibit-sparks-political-row-in-poland.
5. Kamm, Henry. “The Past Submerged: Wroclaw, Once German Breslau, Is Now a Vigorously Polish City.” The New York Times, 19 Feb. 1966.
6. Thum, Gregor. “Cleansed Memory in Wroclaw.” Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe, edited by Steven Bela Várdy and T. Hunt Tooley, Columbia University Press, 2003, pp. 333–357.
7. Gebert, Konstanty. “What World War II and the Legacy It Left.” HST 481: East Central Europe in the 20th Century Lecture, Syracuse Abroad, 28 Oct. 2025.