Discordant necropolitics: survivor-led exhumations and violence against the dead in the early post-Holocaust Poland

Abstract: The Holocaust left behind countless bodies – bodies dispersed across the execution sites, former Nazi camps, repurposed Jewish cemeteries; bodies hastily buried at the outskirts of the former shtetls and in the forest. This article traces the early postwar attempts by various actors to respond to the material (omni)presence of dead bodies. It engages with endeavors by Jewish survivors to exhume and rebury human remains of the victims of the Holocaust, but also with practices instantiating and perpetuating their dehumanization: the mutilation and robbery of the dead by the local non-Jewish populace and their neglect by the stateCitation: Dziuban, Z. (2025) ‘Discordant necropolitics: survivor-led exhumations and violence against the dead in the early post-Holocaust Poland’, Holocaust Studies, 31(3), pp. 421–443. doi: 10.1080/17504902.2024.2392317. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit necropolitics.substack.com