Americans are divided over most things and the past is no different. We disagree about whether to celebrate or question the past. We’re at odds over whether history indoctrinates or educates and whether young minds are harmed or helped by exposure to the complexity of the past. Historian John Garrison Marks argues that the real problem is that Americans dislike ambiguity. There is no better example of this dilemma than George Washington. Responsible for the creation of a new American political order based on the ideals of democracy, liberty, and equality, Washington was to his dying day a slave holder. He was a supporter of gradual emancipation and freed his own slaves in his last will and testament but he never took a public stand against slavery during his lifetime. How we remember George Washington reveals much about how we understand ourselves and what it means to be American. A conversation with John Garrison Marks about his book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Struggle Over American Memory, in this episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

Americans have been struggling with the memory of George Washington since his death. Should we celebrate his role in the creation of the nation or lament that he actively participated in and profited from the business of slave owning? Should we underscore that he freed his own slaves in his last will and testament or highlight that he never took a public position against slavery during his lifetime? Depending on the political context, historian John Garrison Marks argues that Americans have preferred to cherry-pick from Washington’s past to support their agenda in the present. Only through a fuller understanding of Washington and his legacy of slavery can we arrive at a meaningful, shared past. A conversation with John Garrison Marks about his book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Struggle Over American Memory, next on the April 7th episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.

99% of Poland’s pre-war Jewish population, the largest in Europe, perished during the Holocaust. Polish native and Canadian historian Jan Grabowski argues this death toll is inconceivable without the collusion of the general Polish population. Yet for decades Polish authorities have denied all responsibility. Instead, they have used the considerable resources of the state to posit that Poles suffered equally or even more than the nation’s Jewish community. In what Grabowski labels as Holocaust distortion, the memory of the past has been fundamentally divorced from reality, even at the most prominent Holocaust memorial sites. A conversation with University of Ottawa historian Jan Grabowski about his book, Whitewash: Poland and the Jews, in this episode of Realms of Memory.