Pryzma : zrozumieć nie-miejsce pamięci (non-lieux de mémoire) ; A prism : understanding a memory non-site

The text refers to "memory non-sites" scattered around Poland: empty plots of land, its past known only to locals. These are former concentration camps, mass graves, or kirkuts. History becomes a hypostasis here where palimpsest seems insufficient to describe their complicated nature. "Detritus" is also not an accurate notion. Recent developments in history may allow to see them as geological structures. Plaszow concentration camp will be a case study example. The author offers a metaphor borrowed from geology to describe its singularity: a prism. With this term she tries to analyse the nature of non-memory places as "refuse dumps" of "tectonic" forces of nature, history, politics, etc.