PhD candidate

Archaeological Interpretation of Absence: WWII, Polish Refugees in Iran and their Memory

This modern era archaeological research is about the memory and forgetting of Polish refugees’ presence in Iran during WWII. In 1942, thousands of Polish deportees who were imprisoned and forcibly taken to different types of camps in Soviet Union were finally set free. Allied forces (mostly British) were in charge of this massive evacuation. The Polish deportees´ odyssey which started with forced migration from Poland to Soviet Union and Iran continued to other parts of the world including India, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Australia, New Zealand etc.

I look into material culture of Polish refugees in Iran and how it is being remembered, forgotten, preserved or neglected. These are camps and other Polish occupied sites in Iran. I also study the mnemonic legacy of the event of deportation of Polish citizens in Poland and Great Britain with emphasis on Iran´s chapter. For example, memorial monuments. How is the Iran chapter being remembered and commemorated by Polish deportees, different Polish, Iranian and British state/governments? Also how did and do local Iranian people remember?

I problematized processes of memory and forgetting of Polish refugees in Iran by critically addressing politics of memory and forgetting which are affected by nationalisms, hegemonial powers and discourses, urban alteration and migration. When studying the problematics, if possible, searching for materialities of alterations is taken into account as well.

 The PhD project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Bernbeck.

For further information, please check https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1804-2187 and https://fu-berlin.academia.edu/maryamnaeimi