How can memory work connect different histories of displacement, erasure, violence and civic responsibility?

Background

Difficult heritage rarely belongs to only one group, one historical event, or one clearly defined place. It often emerges where different histories of violence, displacement, erasure, and neglect overlap. Holocaust memory work has developed a wide range of methods for responding to such sites: documenting traces, marking absence, working with non-sites of memory, practising non-invasive commemoration, engaging local communities, listening to witnesses, and treating care as an ethical obligation.

This chapter proposes an intersectional approach to memory work inspired by Michael Rothberg’s concept of multidirectional memory. Rothberg challenges the idea that different memories of violence compete with one another for public recognition. Instead, he argues that memories can interact productively through cross-reference, negotiation, borrowing, and mutual illumination. In this sense, Holocaust memory, colonial memory, migrant memory, post-war German memory, and memories of contemporary border violence can enter into relation without being reduced to the same story. The aim is not to create equivalence between different histories, but to ask how one field of memory work can sharpen our ethical and methodological sensitivity in another.

In this context, intersectionality does not mean simply adding different identities or histories together. Rather, it means translating and testing methodologies developed in Holocaust-related memory work in other difficult landscapes. These methodologies include: documenting dispersed traces, identifying absences, recording testimonies, marking invisible sites, caring for neglected burial grounds, naming victims, building archives, and creating non-invasive commemorative practices.

Such translation must be careful. It should not collapse historical differences or compare suffering in a simplistic way. The Holocaust, contemporary border violence, and the post-war erasure of German cemeteries in Wrocław are not the same. Yet they raise related ethical questions about invisibility, abandonment, dehumanisation, neglected death, and responsibility for care.

This chapter presents two examples of intersectional memory work within the ReActmem project. The first focuses on memory-making, research and activism in the Polish-Belarusian borderland, where the ongoing humanitarian crisis has exposed the violence of contemporary border regimes.The second concerns the former German Protestant Cemetery in Wrocław, Poland, destroyed in the post-war era.

The Polish-Belarusian borderland represents a contemporary difficult landscape. Since 2021, it has become a site of humanitarian crisis, militarisation, pushbacks, death, disappearance, and abandonment. People on the move have been exposed to violence and neglect, while activists, researchers, local residents, and humanitarian workers have developed practices of assistance, documentation, archiving, mourning, and civic resistance. In this context, methodologies associated with Holocaust memory work, such as documenting dispersed traces, recording testimonies, marking absence, naming victims, building archives, and creating practices of mourning for those denied public recognition — can offer important tools for ethical response.

Seen through Rothberg’s concept of multidirectional memory, the borderland is not presented as “the same as” Holocaust sites. Rather, Holocaust memory methodologies help reveal mechanisms that also operate in contemporary border violence: dehumanisation, invisibilisation, bureaucratic abandonment, denial of responsibility, and the difficulty of mourning those whose deaths remain politically unacknowledged. Memory work becomes a practice of civic resistance and care for those who have been pushed outside the boundaries of public concern.

The former Protestant cemetery at Krzycka Street in Wrocław belongs to a different historical context, but it also raises questions central to difficult heritage work. After 1945, German Breslau became Polish Wrocław. Many German cemeteries were destroyed, levelled, repurposed, or transformed into green spaces without exhumations. As a result, numerous burial grounds became “invisible cemeteries”: places where the dead are still present, but where gravestones, names, and public recognition have disappeared.

Applying methodologies developed in relation to Holocaust non-sites of memory makes it possible to approach the cemetery on Krzycka Street not merely as a forgotten urban green space, but as an ethically charged burial landscape requiring recognition, documentation, care, and public interpretation. From a multidirectional perspective, the cemetery on Krzycka Street reveals how post-war urban identity was built through selective remembrance and selective forgetting. It also shows how methods of marking absence and caring for neglected burial sites can move across different historical contexts while remaining attentive to their specificity.

The point of this approach is not to compare suffering or create direct analogies between the Holocaust, migration crises, and post-war German cemeteries. Rather, it is to ask how memory practices developed in response to one history of violence can help us notice, name, and respond to other forms of erasure and abandonment. Multidirectional memory allows these histories to speak to one another without cancelling one another out.

In both cases — the Polish-Belarusian borderland and the Krzycka Street cemetery — memory work becomes a civic practice. It is a way of responding to those whose presence has been erased, whose deaths remain insufficiently acknowledged, or whose histories have been pushed outside dominant narratives.

Together, these examples show how Holocaust memory methodologies can travel across contexts while remaining historically careful and ethically grounded. They invite us to ask: How do we care for those whose presence has been erased? How do we remember people who were displaced, abandoned, or made invisible? How can documentation, marking, testimony, mourning, and care become tools of civic responsibility today? And how can different memories — Holocaust memory, migrant memory, German post-war memory, urban memory, and civic memory — enter into relation without becoming rivals?

Case Study 20: Border Memory Practices, Świnoroje (Poland)

 

Context

Since 2021, the Polish-Belarusian borderland has become a site of humanitarian crisis, militarisation and border violence. As part of the EU’s external border, the region has been transformed through walls, surveillance, military presence, restricted access zones and securitised policies. People on the move have been exposed to pushbacks, injury, death, disappearance and abandonment.

At the same time, local residents, activists, researchers and humanitarian workers have developed practices of assistance, documentation, archiving, mourning and resistance. These practices respond not only to immediate humanitarian needs, but also to the problem of public memory: how to document violence that states often deny, obscure or normalise? How to remember those who die at borders? How to archive solidarity, rescue and resistance?

The borderland is also a historically layered region. Its landscapes include the Białowieża Forest, local villages, traces of wartime violence, Jewish history, displacement and shifting state borders. The seminars organised in Świnoroje in Podlasie explored how the Holocaust past of the region resonates with the current humanitarian crisis, and how historical memory can inform ethical responses to contemporary violence without equating different histories.

This case study presents border memory practices as a form of intersectional memory work connecting migration justice, research ethics, environmental awareness, archiving and commemoration.

 

Highlights

  • Creating an international and interdisciplinary space for dialogue on border violence
  • Bringing together researchers, activists, humanitarian workers, students and local residents
  • Discussing migration, pushbacks, border deaths, mourning, archiving and social justice
  • Using ethnographic walks and guided forest walks as field-based learning methods
  • Exploring the relationship between border infrastructure, landscape and violence
  • Addressing the ethics of research, documentation and activist knowledge production
  • Connecting contemporary border violence with layered histories of the Podlasie region
  • Including artistic, performative and workshop-based formats alongside academic discussion

 

Description

The first seminar in March 2026, Researching, Archiving, Memory-Making: Methodologies and Ethics of Research (and Activism) on the Border, was organised in Świnoroje in the Podlasie region, near the Polish-Belarusian border. It was a four-day hybrid event, allowing both on-site and online participation.

The seminar brought together researchers from 17 countries, as well as civil society activists, unaffiliated activists, PhD students, humanitarian workers, local residents and students. Speakers were selected through an open call circulated through academic and activist networks.

The aim was to discuss researching, archiving and memory-making practices in the context of the humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border and other border regimes. The seminar asked how contemporary borders are produced, externalised and internalised; how border violence is documented; how pushbacks and deaths are monitored; and how communities create practices of mourning, solidarity and resistance.

The programme included 22 presentations, an ethnographic walk in the border area, a discussion titled Solidarity Infrastructure: Emergency Lines, a textile workshop titled Strengths of Threads, and a guided walk in the Białowieża Forest. On-site participants had the opportunity to experience the border space, observe consequences of militarisation and reflect on the role of the forest as both natural environment and border infrastructure.

Discussions addressed extractivism in research, positionality, knowledge hierarchies, collaborative methodologies, the role of engaged researchers, activist archives, documentation of border deaths, and ways of including people on the move while prioritising their safety.

A second seminar, Reinterpretations: Transforming Borderscapes through Infrastructure, Oppression, and Resistance, took place between 23 and 26 April 2026 in Świnoroje. It focused on the systemic nature of border violence, control mechanisms and resistance strategies at EU external borders, with particular attention to the Polish-Belarusian border.

The seminar included 20 presentations, two workshops, two guided walks and a theatre performance. It explored contemporary borders as complex “borderscapes” shaped by walls, surveillance technologies, drones, razor wire, military infrastructure, forests, rivers and wetlands.

Key themes included the systemic nature of violence, the methodological crisis in border research, the role of “archives of resistance,” the use of mourning activism, and the interdependence of infrastructure and environment. Participants discussed how natural environments are instrumentalised as components of border regimes, increasing the danger of migration routes.

The seminar opened with a guided border walk led by Inga Hajdarowicz and Natalia Judzińska. This field-based activity introduced participants to the local context of the Polish-Belarusian borderland, combining situated knowledge, activist perspectives and on-site reflection.

A second walk, led by local resident and guide Ewa Moroz-Keczyńska, drew attention to the environmental richness of the Białowieża Forest and the impact of the border crisis on nature.

Participants also joined local residents at the local cultural centre to watch the monodrama The Little Doctor Has Returned, directed by Joanna Troc and performed by Rafał Pietrzak. The performance, created by Teatr Czrevo, is based on the life story of Arsalan Azzaddin, an Iranian Kurdish doctor and long-term resident of Poland who became involved in assisting people affected by the humanitarian crisis at the border.

Participants came from more than 15 countries, including countries outside the European Union such as the United Kingdom, Syria, the United States and Bulgaria.

Challenges

  • HOW to speak about contemporary border violence without reproducing the invisibility of those affected by it?
  • HOW to document pushbacks, deaths and disappearances ethically and safely?
  • HOW to avoid extractive research practices when working with vulnerable people and activist communities?
  • HOW to include people on the move as agents and knowledge holders rather than only as victims?
  • HOW to understand forests, rivers and terrain as part of border infrastructure rather than neutral nature?
  • HOW to connect the Holocaust past of Podlasie with the current humanitarian crisis without flattening historical differences?
  • HOW to archive not only violence, but also solidarity, care and resistance?

 

Solutions

  • Create spaces where researchers, activists, local residents and humanitarian workers can speak together.
  • Use field-based methods such as ethnographic walks, border walks and guided forest walks.
  • Develop archives of resistance that record violence, but also solidarity, rescue, mourning and care.
  • Recognise people on the move as knowledge holders and political subjects.
  • Analyse landscape as part of the border regime, not merely as scenery.

 

Key Takeaways

  • Mourning can become a civic and political practice when deaths are denied, hidden or normalised.
  • Landscapes such as forests, rivers and wetlands can become instruments of violence, but also spaces of witnessing and solidarity.
  • Artistic and performative formats can open space for reflection where academic language is insufficient.
  • Historical memory can inform present-day responsibility, but only when differences between past and present violence are respected.

Case Study 21: Krzycka Street Cemetery, Wrocław (Poland)

 

Context

The former German Protestant Cemetery at Krzycka Street 45 in Wrocław is part of the complex post-war history of the city. Before 1945, Wrocław was German Breslau. After the war, the city became Polish, its population changed almost completely, and many material traces of its German past were removed, neglected or repurposed.

This process strongly affected cemeteries. After 1945, Wrocław’s authorities ordered the liquidation of German cemeteries. By the late 1980s, 44 out of around 70 such sites had been destroyed. Tombstones were removed, cemetery grounds were levelled, and many areas were converted into parks or green spaces without exhumations. Gravestones were reused in cemeteries or as construction materials in Wrocław and elsewhere in Poland.

As a result, many burial grounds became “invisible cemeteries”: places where the dead remain present, but where gravestones, names and public recognition have disappeared.

The cemetery on Krzycka Street, formerly Trentinstraße, followed a slightly different path. After the war, it was handed over to the Polish Catholic parish and remained in use until 1958. This allowed it to avoid immediate liquidation. However, in the 1970s its southern section was destroyed, and pre-war German tombstones were pushed into a reserve area and buried.

This case study shows how conservation, excavation, public education and community involvement can help restore public awareness of such a place.

Highlights

  • Combining professional conservation with public workshops
  • Involving local residents, volunteers, students, specialists, the parish and civic activists
  • Connecting the erased German history of Breslau with present-day civic responsibility in Wrocław
  • Using guided walks and cultural events to make the cemetery legible again

 

Description

The activities at Krzycka Street were organised by the Urban Memory Foundation together with the local civic initiative Spod Ziemi Patrzy Breslau, which works to recover and commemorate pre-war German cemeteries in Wrocław.

The process began with careful preparation. Several meetings were held with a certified master stonemason to define the scope of conservation workshops, select gravestones for restoration and coordinate supervision over fieldwork connected with excavating buried gravestones.

The organisers also held discussions with the parish priest of the Holy Trinity Church, the current administrator of the cemetery. These meetings resulted in permission for conservation and excavation works, as well as formal authorisation to act on behalf of the administrator when applying for administrative approvals.

Because the cemetery is located in an area listed in the municipal register of monuments, the planned activities were consulted with the Lower Silesian Regional Heritage Conservator. A positive opinion was obtained, allowing the fieldwork to proceed.

An environmental inventory was also commissioned. The area had been overgrown since the 1970s, so it was necessary to assess which trees and shrubs required removal before excavation. Documentation was submitted to the City of Wrocław’s Environmental Department. After a site visit, permission for tree and shrub removal was granted.

The organisers then confirmed the scope, costs and technical details of excavation with the company responsible for conducting field operations using heavy equipment.

During the fieldwork phase, the site was cleared of overgrowth, and excavation was carried out in areas where German gravestones had been buried. More than 50 gravestones and numerous fragments were unearthed. The recovered objects underwent preliminary inventory and photographic documentation.

At the same time, meetings were held with architect Roman Rutkowski to develop a concept for a future lapidarium. The aim is to create a coherent display of recovered German gravestones, a space for commemoration and learning, and an accessible interpretive site combining landscape architecture, historical narrative and local memory.

The process was accompanied by participatory conservation workshops.

The first workshop, held on 18 May 2024, focused on foundational conservation skills. Participants learned how to restore inscriptions on granite gravestones using mineral paints, gild inscriptions with gold leaf, and restore inscriptions on sandstone. The workshop included on-site demonstrations and hands-on learning. Trainers included master stonemason Dariusz Dembiński and heritage conservator Andrzej Wróblewski.

The second workshop, held on 22 June 2024, expanded the programme by introducing modern technologies. Participants observed laser-cleaning demonstrations by the IRLaser team and learned about safe, non-invasive laser methods for stone conservation. The workshop also included inscription restoration on seven stelae and conservation of the gravestone of Anna Schnitte, installed the previous year. Trainers included Dariusz Dembiński and IRLaser specialists.

A major public cultural event took place at the cemetery on 9 November 2024 and attracted more than 80 attendees. The programme included a historical guided walk presenting biographies of people who had lived in pre-war Breslau and were buried at the cemetery, educational commentary on the site’s significance, and a concert of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater performed by artists from Ukraine and Belarus: Katarzyna Czekanowska, Natalia Akinina-Kalada and Natalia Czekanowska.

The event was co-organised with the Holy Trinity Parish Wrocław-Krzyki and the Krzyki-Partynice District Council. The participation of artists from Ukraine and Belarus created a symbolic connection between the memory of displaced and erased communities in Wrocław and societies currently affected by war, authoritarianism and geopolitical violence.

Challenges

  • HOW to restore and commemorate a cemetery that was partially destroyed, buried and made invisible?
  • HOW to work with pre-war German heritage in a post-war Polish city shaped by displacement and political erasure?
  • HOW to connect material conservation with public education and community engagement?
  • HOW to preserve recovered gravestones while avoiding the impression of reconstructing the cemetery in an artificial way?
  • HOW to transform an overgrown and neglected site into a place of memory without erasing its layered history?

 

Solutions

  • Combine specialist conservation work with public workshops.
  • Treat the cemetery as both a burial ground and a public learning space.
  • Work with the cemetery administrator, heritage authorities, environmental services and local civic groups.
  • Use guided walks to connect material remains with individual life stories.
  • Include cultural events to create emotional access to the site’s history.

 

Key Takeaways

  • Participatory workshops can make heritage protection accessible to people without specialist training.
  • Lapidaria can provide respectful ways to display recovered gravestones without falsely reconstructing original grave locations.
  • Working with difficult urban heritage requires cooperation between civic groups, religious administrators, heritage specialists and public authorities.
  • Biographical storytelling can help people connect with cemeteries as places of individual lives, not only abstract history.

 

See also Case Study 18