What had almost entirely vanished from collective memory was the fact that before World War II, Jewish and non-Jewish communities had coexisted in Poland for ten centuries, in a relationship that included phases of tension and benign indifference, of spiritual separateness and mutually advantageous commerce, of ideological anti-Semitism and what might be called multiculturalism avant la lettre. For several of those centuries, Poland had the largest Jewish population of any country in the world as well as proportionately the largest Jewish minority, with highly elaborate forms of communal life and institutions of learning central to Ashkenazi Jews everywhere. [...]
For all its attempts at completeness, the museum has drawn criticism, ranging from the charge that it doesn’t sufficiently honor the “righteous” Poles to accusations that it underplays anti-Semitism in various periods; from the contention that the exhibition underestimates the place of religion in Jewish life to suggesting, conversely, that it gives too much importance to piety. Perfect balance in presenting such a long and multidimensional history is difficult to attain, but the wide spectrum of objections may be an indirect tribute to the museum’s efforts to do so impartially. Whatever one’s reservations, it is hard to come away from the exhibition without understanding that Jews were a vital part of Polish life for centuries. [...]
The museum itself, topped by a red-framed, leaning glass tower, is almost sculptural in effect, with the huge exhibition located deep underground. The intention of the museum’s founders was clear from the outset: to show the war in its global dimensions and to emphasize the suffering of civilians, who, in contrast to previous conflicts, numerically bore the war’s greatest losses. But it was also, Machcewicz has written, “to insert the experiences of Poland and east-central Europe into Europe’s and the world’s historical memory.”
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