Od pamięci indywidualnej do kulturowej – łódzkie więzienie na Gdańskiej jako część historii obozu przy przemysłowej w Łodzi
From an individual to the cultural memory - the Lodz’s prison on Gdanska Street as a part of the history of the camp on Przemyslowa Street in Lodz

Author(s): Urszula Sochacka
Subject(s): History of Communism
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: camp on Przemyslowa Street in Lodz; prison on Gdanska Street in Lodz; Lodz’s prisons; historical memory; cultural memory
Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this research is to find out to what extent the prison on Gdanska Street in Lodz, treated as a part of the history of the camp on Przemyslowa Street, is represented in the scholarly discourse. In my opinion, the problem is important, because the camp on Przemyslowa itself plays only a marginal part in the historical memory. My hypothesis is, that the reason for the above-signaled condition is not, as the many authors of the studies on the camp claim, the lack of any surviving original documentation, but the lack of a comprehensive research. On the basis of the critique of the sources from the years: 1946-2023 it was established, that the Gdanska Street prison, considered in the context of the Przemyslowa Street camp, is poorly represented in the discourse on Lodz’s prisons that funcioned in the years: 1939-1945. The analysis of the dynamics of the process of the transformation of an individual memory into the historical one, on the example of the case of the Gdanska’s one, as part of the memoirs of a former inmate of the camp, highlighted the numerous conditions, resulting, among other things, in the lack of any comprehensive research on the issue in question. The archives found indicate the validity of the hypothesis, that we are dealing with the predominance of a storage memory over an functional one, so the reasons for the Gdanska Street prison’s weak presence in the historical memory should not be seen in the lack of any surviving documentation, but in the lack of the proper research. Due to the inverse proportional size of the article and the issues raised I believe, that the research performed should be treated as contributory. The indisputable value of the study is the presence in the scientific discourse of any archival materials, the existence of which has, so far, only been hinted at in the literature.

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