The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland

by Geneviève Zubrzycki

In the summer and fall of 1998, ultranationalist Polish Catholics erected hundreds of crosses outside Auschwitz, setting off a fierce debate that pitted Catholics and Jews against one another. While this controversy had ramifications that extended well beyond Poland’s borders, Geneviève Zubrzycki sees it as a particularly crucial moment in the development of post-Communist Poland’s statehood and its changing relationship to Catholicism.

In The Crosses of Auschwitz, Zubrzycki skillfully demonstrates how this episode crystallized latent social conflicts regarding the significance of Catholicism in defining “Polishness” and the role of anti-Semitism in the construction of a new Polish identity. Since the fall of Communism, the binding that has held Polish identity and Catholicism together has begun to erode, creating unease among ultranationalists. Within their construction of Polish identity also exists pride in the Polish people’s long history of suffering. For the ultranationalists, then, the crosses at Auschwitz were not only symbols of their ethno-Catholic vision, but also an attempt to lay claim to what they perceived was a Jewish monopoly over martyrdom.

This gripping account of the emotional and aesthetic aspects of the scene of the crosses at Auschwitz offers profound insights into what Polishness is today and what it may become.

Genres: Poland, Nonfiction

301 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2006

About the author

Geneviève Zubrzycki is Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of the Copernicus Program in Polish Studies, and Faculty Associate at the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. She studies national identity and religion, collective memory, mythology and the politics of commemorations, and the place of religious symbols in the public sphere.

Her work focuses on linkages between religion, politics, and collective memory and combines historical and ethnographic methods, considering evidence from material and visual culture.

Dr. Zubrzycki's work has been funded by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation.

Reviews

[Hailey Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

***read for class***
this book was fascinating, and makes a strong case for the small-scale study of big social phenomena

[Juliana Castañeda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great work! This book is very useful for people wanting to know more about any of these topics: nationalism, religion and patriotism, sociology of religion, Polish history, post-WW2 and post-Communist Europe, symbolic interactionism, nation building, symbolic anthropology, Catholicism and Judaism in Poland, and Auschwitz.

[Joy Wolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book out of personal interest in the topic, but anticipated that it would be a hard read because it is an academic work in a field that is unfamiliar to me. Instead of being a dry academic tome, it read like a suspense novel. Zubrzycki's writing is clear and accessible even when dealing with a complex history and theory. Her balanced account of deeply held but competing historical/nationalist/religious narratives was highly illuminating and enhanced my understanding of the extraordinarily complex intertwined histories of Christian and Jewish Poles.

[Matt Erickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a very thorough and sophisticated writing style, made sense to me with my sociology background, and that's why I liked it. Symbolic interactionists will like this book and it's thorough exploration of the meaning of the cross. I didn't like the political section very much.