PERPETRATORS’ TRAUMA AS A SUBJECT OF SOCIALLY SHAPED PROCESSES OF REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY. THE CASE OF GNIEWCZYNA Cover Image

„TRAUMA SPRAWCÓW” JAKO PRZEDMIOT SPOŁECZNIE KSZTAŁTOWANYCH PROCESÓW PAMIĘTANIA I ZAPOMINANIA W SPOŁECZNOŚCI LOKALNEJ. PRZYPADEK GNIEWCZYNY
PERPETRATORS’ TRAUMA AS A SUBJECT OF SOCIALLY SHAPED PROCESSES OF REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY. THE CASE OF GNIEWCZYNA

Author(s): Mateusz Magierowski
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Wydawnictwa AGH
Keywords: social memory; perpetrator’s trauma; memory work; local community

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the issue of socially shaped processes of remembering and forgetting about a “negative group past” (Bilewicz 2008), considering the case of Gniewczyna, where local firemen took part in mass murder committed against Jews in 1942. Using data from individual interviews with members of the local community, local elites, and experts, I analyze interactions among (non)memories, framed on various dimensions of the life of a local community: individual, public, family and one shaped in neighbourhood circles. Treating Alexander’s theory of cultural trauma and Halbwachs’s theory of social memory as analytical frameworks, I also discuss why the “representation of perpetrator’s trauma” presented by a witness of the murder, Tadeusz Markiel, was fruitless in the local community perspective.

  • Issue Year: 13/2014
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 247-258
  • Page Count: 12