Polin

This chapter turns to the POLIN Museum. It shows that the museum is not a conventional work of historiography. POLIN does, however, present both history and an unmistakable metahistory, which the chapter attempts to explicate. It argues that the creators of the POLIN permanent exhibition brought to life the interpretation of Polish Jewish history catalysed in the historiography of the preceding fifty years or so. The very existence of this museum devoted to Jewish history, as well as its scale, its significant educational role, its central location in Poland's capital, and the extensive financial and political support it has received from Polish governmental sources, all point to a basic tenet of the new metahistory. The museum motto that the author suggests also captures the spirit of the current regnant metahistory.