Poland’s Memory Crisis

Reconciliation is not following in the wake of the search for truth about the past in one fomer Warsaw Pact country, Colin Graham reports.

Re-visiting the past always risks re-opening old wounds but - if Poland's current bout of self-examination of its post-war Communist experiences is anything to go by - it can also lead to new and even more serious injuries. The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), formed by the Polish government in 1998 to investigate crimes committed during the Nazi occupation and subsequently under Communist Party rule up to 1989, has played an increasingly controversial role in the nation's political life.

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