Exhibiting Difficult Histories: The ‘Anti-Zionist’ Campaign in Poland, 1967-1969, And Its Echoes Today

In March 1968, in reaction to a student rebellion, the communist government of Poland launched a noisy propaganda campaign against the alleged Zionists, who were accused of a conspiracy to undermine socialist Poland. The campaign of slander, harassment, and persecution forced half of Poland’s Jews into exile and deeply affected the life of those who remained.

For the fiftieth anniversary of the events this year, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw prepared an exhibition and a rich program of educational and cultural events. This coincided with a stormy debate on the recent “Holocaust defamation law,” bringing mass attention to the program and opening a controversy on the nature of and responsibility for the campaign of 1968. Despite heavy criticism from the media of the right, the museum’s relevant temporary exhibition, lectures, debates and cultural events have already attracted an audience of 100,000 people.

Dariusz Stola, the director of POLIN, will discuss how this history is presented in their temporary exhibition, Estranged: March ’68 and Its Aftermath, and the controversies surrounding it.

Dariusz Stola is a historian, professor at the Institute for Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and member of the Centre for Migration Research at the University of Warsaw. In March 2014, he assumed the position of Director of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. His research focuses on the history of Polish-Jewish relations, the history of People’s Poland and the history of international migration in the twentieth century. He has published more than 100 articles and 10 books. He is a longtime university professor, member of research projects and academic advisory boards of a number of Polish and international institutes and magazines.