ABSTRACT
Prewar Jewish Podzamcze was reported to be a dirty, smelly, crowded place beset with bugs, epidemics, and poverty. It got demolished by Nazi occupants after the dissolution of the ghetto in 1943. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the “Polish Committee of National Liberation” (Lublin Committee) in 1954, the neighborhood was fundamentally restructured. This changing of the cityscape after the war was a major symbolic act of creating “Lublin of the Future”––as praised by the contemporary press. This chapter analyzes the discourse evolving around restructuring the space of Podzamcze in the contemporary press of 1954––a discourse aimed at “cleaning up” with the past to establish “Lublin of the Future.” The prewar Polish discourse about this neighborhood, dominated by comments on filthiness and disorder, will be juxtaposed with the postwar wording of “cleansing,” “hygienization” and “creating order.” The constructional, as well as discursive cleansing of Lublin’s Jewish topography, can thus be read as part of a decades-spanning effort aimed at this neighborhood––starting with prewar hygiene discourse, Nazi occupation’s cleansing actions, and continued by the Socialist government in the 1950s.
