1944 – Political and religious decision-makers and the international community are silent and unable to make political decisions in the face of the last acts of the genocidal policies of the Third Reich. Humanitarian objectives recede into the background against the political and economic interests of the post-war world. Indifference and controlled press silence in the face of the murder of Hungarian and Lodz Jews. Silence in the face of the brutal pacification of the Warsaw Uprising.
1944 – August – execution of Henryk Sławik in Mauthausen – Gusen concentration camp.
1945 – end of the war, new political division of Europe deepening the trauma of the survivors and preventing them from telling the truth about the crimes they had experienced.
1945-1950 – Lack of legal regulations to prosecute the main architects of genocide for the mass murders. The socially, politically and economically conditioned gradual forgetting of the crimes, the need for justice and the building of an inclusive memory. A selective and politicised memory that often ignores and is built against the accounts of survivors.
Krystyna Modrzewska – 1947 – Deposits her diary in the archives of the Central Jewish Historical Commission and devotes herself to an academic career.
Zofia Kossak Szczucka – in 1945 forced into a 12-year emigration by the communist authorities 1946 – publishes her memoirs from 8 months in Birkenau in the volume “Z otchłani – wspomnienia z łagru” (“From the Abyss – Memories from the Gulag”). Her books were banned in communist Poland until 1957.
Franciszek Ząbecki – works on the railways. A memoir book in 1977
Alfreda Markowska – was forcibly resettled with her fleet by the communist authorities in Gorzów Wielkopolski Her story was unknown until the 1990s.
Tomasz Blatt – stayed in communist Poland. He joined the Party. 1948-49 works in UB. 1957 emigrates to Israel. In 1958 gives his first testimony at the trial of Kurt Engels in Hamburg.
Jakub Muller – stays in Poland. He establishes a tailor’s shop. He carries out the exhumation of mass graves and brings the remains to the cemetery in Nowy Sącz.
Denial
This is a stage, occurring after every genocide. The perpetrators obliterate traces of the crime, hide evidence, and intimidate witnesses. They deny committing any crimes and often blame the victims for what happened. They block investigations and try to stay in power until they are forcibly forced to give it up or flee. Only fair and just trials and the imposition of punishment by courts or tribunals prevent the impunity of perpetrators and the progressive denial of crimes. Silence is one of the most common forms of denial. Silence following genocide perpetuates lack of awareness and denial.
“I was living in the neighborhood, in Berka Joselewicza Street. The head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Hamann, came with his entourage and they shot at people who were still in bed and did not expect anything. It was an ordinary, cruel murder. One should say a prayer for the dead, but how, now that I am alone?” Jakub Müller on the murder in the tenement house on Franciszkańska Street
Krystyna Gil, née Ciuroń, was born on 5th November 1938 in Szczurowa. Before the war, Polish, Jewish and Romani people lived there together. Krystyna was a Romani girl...
“I am in hiding I am not allowed to say who I am… they’re good to me but if they find out who I am I will be murdered… I must never say who I am”
“In the People's Republic of Poland, there was a record on my father because he belonged to the PPS, the independence movement, the anti-communist movement,” says Krystyna Sławik-Kutermak. “We learned to love him in silence, in conspiracy, illegally. And then, all of a sudden, Zimmerman appeared at our apartment in Katowice, a man who not only had worked with my father, not only had witnessed how he saved people, but also spoke about him with the greatest respect and emotion. Not in a half-whisper, not in hints, but loudly and directly. The forbidden ceased to be forbidden.” Elżbieta Isakiewicz, Gazeta Polska, August 20th, 2003