“Encounter, remembrance, understanding” – these were the words most frequently heard during the panel on memory cultures at the Polish-German Forum in Berlin. And yet, in the background, another, more difficult question kept returning: can one speak with a single voice about a history that everyone remembers differently?
After a seven-year hiatus, the Polish-German Forum returned in 2025 under the motto “Community for Difficult Times”. One of the conference panels was devoted to Polish and German memory cultures. Despite the “Treaty on Good Neighbourliness” and many years of joint events and projects, World War II continues to divide both nations. The panel aimed to create a space for discussing how both nations remember the past, how they attempt to commemorate the victims of the war, and how these are often two entirely different perspectives on a painful past. Although during the meeting it was repeatedly stated that the guiding theme was “encounter, remembrance and understanding”, in practice alongside these words, perhaps even more strongly, mutual misunderstanding also resonated.
The panel featured distinguished researchers from Poland and Germany: Prof. Frank Bösch, Prof. Violetta Julkowska, Prof. Eckhardt Fuchs, Prof. Peter Oliver Loew, Prof. Igor Kąkolewski, Prof. Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, Prof. Robert Traba, Dr Marcin Wiatr, Prof. Rafał Wnuk and Prof. Stephanie Zloch. It was precisely their voices, representing different experiences and perspectives, that showed how differently Poles and Germans perceive the past. Professor Traba from the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences noted that German historical memory largely focuses on relations with Israel and France, and that there is a lack of space in it for genuine reconciliation with Poland. In turn, Professor Bösch from the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History observed that the war in Ukraine is currently diverting the attention of German historians away from Poland and shifting interest in the victims of war further to the East. And Poland, as he emphasised, is not at the centre of German historical research.
On the other hand, as Professor Traba noted, Poles are in their own way “self-absorbed”, convinced of the uniqueness of their own suffering and often unwilling to acknowledge victims other than their own. This dissonance – “who is the victim and who is the perpetrator?” – returned several times during the discussion, revealing how difficult shared commemoration is. One example cited was the dispute over the name of a display panel at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk. According to Prof. Wnuk, the current director of the Museum of the Second World War, his predecessor, and now president-elect, Karol Nawrocki, opposed recognising German civilians killed in Allied bombing raids as victims of the war. He considered them part of the aggressor nation. As a result, the museum panel received the title “War Losses”, which separates their fate from the narrative of suffering. But then how does one speak of people who died “on the other side”? What place (if any) should they occupy in the narrative of suffering and memory?
These differences in approaches to historical memory translate into disputes over the form of commemoration, as in the case of the planned memorial in Berlin dedicated to the victims of World War II and the German occupation on the territory of the Polish Republic. A temporary memorial in the form of a boulder will be unveiled on 16 June 2025 at the site of the former Kroll Opera House near the Reichstag. In the future, a Polish-German House will operate there, a place whose aim will be to make Germans aware of the scale of Nazi crimes committed in occupied Poland. In the discussion about the memorial, the question of who is a victim once again returned, in the context of the inscription beneath the temporary memorial. Should the inscription on the plaque commemorate exclusively “Polish victims of Nazism”, or rather “citizens of the Second Polish Republic”? Ultimately, as Peter Oliver Loew from the German Institute for Polish Affairs explained, Poles and Germans jointly worked out a formula intended not to divide but to unite. Beneath the memorial, the following inscription will be placed: “To the Polish victims of Nazism and the victims of German occupation and terror in Poland 1939–1945”. The definition of victims was broadened beyond ethnic Poles to include all citizens of the Second Polish Republic – people of different nationalities, languages and religions who at that time shared the fate of this land.
Are Poles and Germans destined for (mis)understanding? The panel showed that although in theory there are also examples of “encounter, shared commemoration and understanding”, their breaking through into the mainstream is very difficult. One example is the history textbook “Europe. Our History” (in German, “Europa – Unsere Geschichte”). This four-volume textbook was meant to be a symbol of Polish-German reconciliation and proof that it is possible to tell history together. However, despite years of work by historians from both countries, the textbook still remains outside the mainstream of education. According to Professor Traba, the joint textbook is “an illusion and a political defeat”, because in Poland the textbook was “pushed” to the margins by decisions of Minister Przemysław Czarnek, and in Germany by “political opportunism”.
A similar sense of contradiction and hope accompanied the entire panel. The room was full, and questions from the audience showed that the topic arouses emotions in both countries. Although, in my opinion, at times there was a lack of genuine discussion, rather than just experts posing questions to experts. The organisers attributed the small number of questions to time constraints, but in my view this reduced the meeting to a lecture rather than the needed debate. This shows that we still have a long way ahead – not only towards understanding history, but also towards creating tools that will make it alive and important for future generations, because when the last witnesses of World War II pass away, it will be up to younger people to nurture memory, but also to maintain reconciliation and solidarity.
Perhaps it is precisely here – in this delicate balance of “encounter, remembrance and (mis)understanding” – that the true meaning of the Forum’s motto lies: “Community for Difficult Times”. Because community is not agreement at any cost, but the courage to stand together, even if each of us remembers differently. It is also a space in which different voices can resonate together – sometimes in harmony, sometimes in resistance, but always in dialogue. And history needs not only monuments, but people.
Author: Teresa Kulej