80 years ago, on 8 May 1945, World War II ended. Or maybe – to paraphrase dr Zygmunt Klukowski, who is cited in one of the published essays – we entered the 86th year of war in January 2025?

For it has not ended for the shrinking generation of witnesses. Psychologists unequivocally point that the war-related trauma is passed onto the next generations.

With the beginning of the 21st century World War II became a subject of interest for sociologists, anthropologists and cultural experts. Besides, historians commenced their scholarly research into the wartime fates of those ethnic groups that were not Jewish or – as it happened in our domestic discourse – Polish. They also focused on the thus-far marginalised minorities.

It is the pop culture that does not allow us to forget about World War II. Though the increasingly popular books that fall into the Holo-kitsch category often trivialise and distort the memory of the Shoah, they are among the most accessible content form related to this topic. The question is whether we should appreciate the growing number of romances with characters dressed in striped uniforms.

All these points are in the interest of authors who contributed to our latest publication under the editorship of Pualina Pętal. Jacek Leociak, Dariusz Libionka, Nadia Sola-Sałamacha and Robert Traba do not offer ready answers though. They indicate, however, how that wartime past shapes our present.