Memory, Martyrdom, and Polish Nationalism: A Theological Critique of the Chapel of Remembrance in Toruń, Poland

Since Jan Gross called attention to Poles’ complicity in the murder of Jews during the Second World War with the publication of Neighbors in 2000, a populist “backlash” (Forecki 2018) to critical historiography on the Holocaust in Poland has emerged among Polish ethnonationalists seeking to defend the “good name” of Poland. In this paper, I critically analyze one salient locus of this ethnonationalist backlash: The Chapel of Remembrance (Kaplica Pamięci) in Toruń, which commemorates Poles murdered for helping Jews during the Holocaust. Building on recent sociological engagements with the Chapel of Remembrance, I offer a theological analysis and critique of the chapel’s portrayal of the “dead rescuers” (Łysak 2023) it commemorates as martyrs. Ultimately, I argue that the Chapel of Remembrance deploys the symbolic grammar of martyrdom for nationalist ends and, in doing so, sacralizes the Polish nation in a manner fundamentally at odds with a Christian theology of martyrdom.