Golgotha in paradise: memory and martyrdom in a former Polish shtetl

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article examines how local complicity in the Holocaust is negotiated, silenced, and revealed through the spatial memoryscape of Rajgród, a small town in northeastern Poland where Poles participated in the murder of their Jewish neighbors in the summer of 1941. Using a microhistorical lens, it analyzes how knowledge, denial, and memory are inscribed in physical spaces and communal practices, rendering space a cultural text. Drawing on personal and municipal records and ethnographic fieldwork, the article shows how Catholicism, nationalism, and ritual symbolism shape collective remembrance and moral hierarchies of suffering in post-socialist Eastern Europe.

Original languageEnglish
JournalHolocaust Studies
DOIs
StateAccepted/In press - 2026

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  1. SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
    SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keywords

  • Christianity
  • Holocaust
  • memory
  • neighbors
  • pogroms
  • profanation

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