The Holocaust and “Naive” Art in Polish-German Post-War Public Memory

Perpetrators and Bystanders examines how Polish Holocaust-themed folk art shaped German-Polish memory negotiations from 1945 to today, revealing how perpetrator and bystander communities used artistic exchange to navigate their wartime roles and responsibilities.

Readers will gain critical insights into the understudied dialogical processes between German and Polish communities in constructing Holocaust memory. By tracing the emergence, circulation, and instrumentalization of Polish “naive art” across East, West, and reunited Germany, this volume reveals how artistic transactions became vehicles for negotiating perpetrator, victim, and witness identities, demonstrating how consumption patterns shaped collective memory in both nations.

This book is intended for scholars and advanced students in Holocaust studies, memory studies, art history, German studies, and Eastern European history. It will appeal to researchers examining perpetrator-bystander dynamics and transnational memory formation, as well as museum professionals and curators working with Holocaust material culture.