“Traumas from the Holocaust Have Revived”. March 1968 as a Polish Postcatastrophic Narration

The article discusses select literary images and presentations of March 1968, which are treated as an example of a postcatastrophic narration. The author states that the events of the years 1967-1968 are often depicted in Polish literature as a kind of a “recurring catastrophe” – predicting an event of the calibre of the Holocaust. Similarities and parallels can be noticed on the artistic level (ways of representation) and ideological (judgement of events). Consequently, the catastrophe does not fulfil its cathartic function and does not become a breakthrough, instead its characteristic features are repetitions and new configurations. Finally, the author asks whether, and to what extent, Polish remembrance of March overlaps with the remembrance of the Holocaust, and to what degree the struggle with anti-Semitism in 1967-1968 was simultaneously a struggle with anti-Semitism during WWII