TY - JOUR N2 - 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). L1 - http://journals.pan.pl/Content/113546/PDF/RL%204-19%201-Tomczok.pdf L2 - http://journals.pan.pl/Content/113546 PY - 2019 IS - No 4 (355) EP - 401 DO - 10.24425/rl.2019.130053 KW - Literary and cultural criticism KW - topos KW - remembrance KW - Aby Warburg’s "Nachleben" KW - the Holocaust topos KW - Contemporary Polish literature KW - popular fiction KW - pop culture A1 - Tomczok, Marta PB - Polska Akademia Nauk Oddział w Krakowie Komisja Historycznoliteracka PB - Uniwersytet Jagielloński Wydział Polonistyki DA - 2020.01.13 T1 - “Nachleben” and the Holocaust topos SP - 389 UR - http://journals.pan.pl/dlibra/publication/edition/113546 T2 - Ruch Literacki ER -