Commemorating the Children of World War II in Poland by Ewa Stańczyk

Author:Ewa Stańczyk
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030322625
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

To take this thought further, children and war belong in different domains. In most societies, including Poland, the use of young people in armed conflict tarnishes the sanctity of the family unit in which children are nurtured and protected, constituting the greatest value. This hesitance to talk about child soldiers suggests, then, a collective fear of destabilizing the narrowly defined cultural concepts of childhood which are deeply rooted in the stereotypical ideas of vulnerability and defencelessness. It is out of this fear of crossing the invisible boundary between childhood, adulthood, and (importantly) war, that moral panic arises. In the Polish context, moral panic is a direct response to the reverential treatment of Warsaw’s underage insurgents, the glorification of their war effort and enthusiasm, and the nationalist calls to emulate them by contemporary youth. As I show below, these expressions of moral panic are also a direct response to both the traditional forms of commemorating the young soldiers as well as the more innovative ways of engaging today’s youth with the history of the uprising.

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