In her book Anna Ziębińska-Witek deals with a question of displaying and interpreting the experience of communism in various historical exhibitions in Central and Eastern Europe. The book enables the readers to get acquainted with analysis of historical discourses concerning contemporary history conducted neither in form of sophisticated monographies, nor in form of superficial press commentaries, but basing on such an unique media as historical exhibitions. Ziębińska-Witek stresses here the fact that museums are more often than not instruments of the politics of memory than a method of disseminating objective historical knowledge. Therefore she analyses and deconstructs various types of exhibitions: those stressing heroism, those underlining martyrdom, and, finally, those with a gadget-focused sentimental approach. Although it is hard to speak about one single interpretation of communism in historical exhibitions in Central and Eastern Europe, Ziębińska-Witek points out that in all Central and Eastern European countries the dominant role is played by large, stateowned museums.

The paper is a part of the war diary of Aurelia Wyleżyńska (1881-1944), in which she described the political and social life in Warsaw (and not only there) from September 1939 until June 1944. Aurelia Wyleżyńska, a scion of Polish gentry, was a writer and journalist, the author of over a dozen of novels and hundreds of articles in Polish and French-language press, concerning mainly literature, feminism, pacifism (and civilizational progress, which she identified with the latter). She investigates the mood of the civilians and the views of Polish soldiers she met. She analyses social conditions, including her Jewish friends. She shows the dreadful German invasion and the accompanying changes to life and death. She also comments on the Soviet invasion. In her diary she shows how quickly the bustling Polish capital turns into a ruined cage for individuals struggling for survival.

Professor Lech Wojtczak spent his entire scientific life at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology PAS, where he worked since 1947. He is the author or co-author of two hundred scientific papers, promoted 15 doctors of science, was the Full Member of PAS and has been awarded with several prizes and honors. Among his students are three successive directors of the Nencki Institute, the authors of the present article. Scientific interests of Professor Lech Wojtczak were always dealing with bioenergectics, a discipline that he led in Poland and Eastern-Central Europe. In particular, his studies focused on the role of fatty acids and their derivatives on bioenergetics, on the regulatory role of surface potential of biomembranes on enzymatic and transport activities, on the regulatory role of calcium and magnesium in mitochondria, on the role of free oxigen radicals in bioenergetics, etc. Apart from being a great scientist, Lech Wojtczak was also a fantastic teacher, and an excellent scientific supervisor. Being well recognized in the world, he was placing members of his research group in foreignlaboratories, as well as was sending tchem to courses and conferences. This was opening their minds to the world, and to other cultures, and allowed Lech Wojtczak to form from his collaborators the next generation of good scientists and future leaders. The list of the most important pupils of Professor Wojtczak is given in the article. Lech was also excellent in social contacts, and in creating a friendly atmosphere. Together with his wife Anna, they kept an open home, often inviting collaborators to parties that usually led to long scientific discussions. With the sudden death of Pofessor Lech Wojtczak Polish science suffered a great loss. This eminent researcher, the father of Polish bioenergetics, but also a warm and modest person, will be dearly missed.

This article discusses definitions of crimes included into the Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, and their usefulness in prosecuting individuals who committed international crimes. It is argued that the provisions of the Act cannot constitute a ground for criminal responsibility of individuals, as they violate the principle of nullum crimen sine lege certa.

The reviewed book was written basing on Piotr Szlanta’s habilitation thesis defended in 2015 at the University of Warsaw. It deals mainly with “the Polish question”, by describing the relations between Emperor Wilhelm II and his Polish subjects. The title deals with stereotypes of the Emperor and his Polish subjects, and its evolution during subsequent decades. Piotr Szlanta managed to grasp the ambiguous relation between these two sides. On the one hand, the Emperor sought for acceptance and recognition from the side of “his Poles”, on the other hand, he underlined on almost every occasion the historical role of Germans in civilising east territories and its inhabitants. The last attempt of gaining support of Poles towards his politics and himself was an attempt of creating “The Kingdom of Poland” in autumn 1916. Piotr Szlanta’s book, basing on a broad research in various archives managed to highlight this complicated chapter of Polish-German relations.

This article analyses the amendments of January 2018 to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (INR) of 1998, which has raised doubts in light of in ternational law and provoked diplomatic tensions between Poland on one side and Germany, Ukraine, United States of America and Israel on the other. The INR is a national in stitution whose role is, among others, to prosecute perpetrators of in ternational crimes committed between 1917-1990. The article proves that the wording of the amendments is in consistent with in ternational law, as it ignores the principles of in ternational responsibility, definitions of in ternational crimes, and disproportionately limits freedom of expression. In consequence, it cannot be expected that third states will cooperate with Poland in the execution of responsibility for violation of the newly adopted norms.

This article is built on the premise that the topos has become a potent unit of cultural memory, an image that stores a wealth of often vague, buried or forgotten ideas. Its contents, like those of literature, tend to become extraordinarily condensed and confl ated; in consequence, some topoi (in particular the Holocaust topos) defy conventional tools of understanding and analysis. A solution to this problem can be found in an approach which broadens the scope of the sources of the Holocaust to include pop culture; gives up the rigid classifi cation of topoi, based on ‘hard’, documentary evidence; and, draws on a conceptual frame that connects the topos with the mechanisms of remembrance. A practical application of this approach is offered here in a series of readings of selected passages from Marcin Pilis’s novel The Meadow of the Dead (Łąka umarłych), Zygmunt Miłoszewski’s crime story A Grain of Truth (Ziarno prawdy), Marcin Wolski’s alternate history novel Wallenrod, Justyna Wydra’s war romance The SS-man and a Jewess (Esesman i Żydówka), Krzysztof Zajas’s thriller Oszpicyn [local Yiddish: Auschwitz] as well as some poems by Jacek Podsiadło from his volume The Breguet Overcoil (Włos Bregueta).

In post-humanist studies of identity, otherness and exclusion – conducted within the de-anthropocentrism of the humanities – questions arise about the condition of non-human subjects (animals, plants, things) that gain the cultural and social status of Others. As non-human entities, they have a socializing value, cement interpersonal relations, attract people to certain places. They have performative, integrative and co-creating abilities. The posthumanistic “turn towards things” opens the room for the construction of their social (auto) biographies, a development which already has been taking place in contemporary children’s literature. The problem of the creation of (auto)biographies of non-human subjects is presented in this article on the example of the picture book Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear by Tomi Ungerer. The artist gives the non-anthropomorphized plush toy the status of a non-human subject and an active actor of social life as a medium of unoffi cial memory of the Holocaust. Ungerer consciously and innovatively uses the key determinants of the posthuman discourse, including intimate childhood experiences.