Introduction

This chapter conceives the politics of history as opposed to the culture of remembrance as a top-down, state-led practice, the aim of which is to construct, spread and inculcate images of the past. It traces the differences between Polish and German politics of history after 1989 and focuses on state-led sites of memory (SOMs), which are the most important instruments of the politics of history. Although the histories of Poland and Germany are different, the tendency to include the Jewish perspective is gaining in significance in both countries. In a simplified form, in Poland the aim is to restore the memory of the past and to underline the role played by Poles in the history of Europe and the world in the struggle for the freedom of nations during the period of enslavement of the continent by National Socialism, through the fall of Communism and on the religious and eschatological plane.