Abstract: Museums are, for political authorities, not onlyawaytorepresent,visualize, and exhibit the past but alsoaconvenient medium to encouragesocial cohesion and promotec ommunal and national identity.B oth powerful and vulnerable spaces,museums are symbolic of public history.The experience of Paweł Machcewicz, historian, founder,a nd dismissed director,i sa ne xcellent example of this contradictory situation.His book presents af ascinating story of how museums are created, from the very earlystages of conceptual planning,through detailed decisions made on manyindividual elements, to the final installations carried out under the pressureoftime before the official opening.Assuch, the book will be very useful for public history practitioners, professionals, academics, and studentsall over the world.The book alsooffers avery detailed journey through the relationship between public history and politics as well as the tensions we see across the globe between national(istic) policies and more open, transnational contexts.Machcewicze xplores how changingp olitical regimes and policy in the present affect representations and interpretations of the past.Since the opening of the Museum, several changes have been introduced to the main exhibition.The most noticeable is the replacement of the film that was presented at the end of the exhibition, portraying life afterthe Second World War on both sides of the Iron Curtain (western on the left-hand sideofthe screen and eastern on the right-hand side).Joined togetherafter the collapse of the communist regime,the film alsoa ddressed contemporary issues, such as the immigration crisis.Now,visitors are greeted with an animatedf ilm, TheU nconquered,a production of the Instituteo fN ational Remembrance, praising Polish suffering and achievements duringt he Second World War.Other steps in the same direction includem oving the stories of the Polish heroes of the Second World War, such as Witold Pilecki, Father Maksymilian Kolbe, and Irena Sendler, to more prominent places in the museum and adding the story of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, who weree xecuted with their children for their efforts to rescue Jews.Each of the 316 Polish paratroopers (Cichociemni) trained in Britaina nd dropped into the Polish territoriesu ndero ccupation are now listed by name.The numbers of the Polish victims and Polish participants in the armed anti-Nazi underground weres een as underestimated and have thereforebeenreconsidered.Last but not least,more examples of Stalinist terror wereadded in the part of the exhibition dedicated to the prewar Soviet Union in order to emphasize the coercive,not just propagandist,nature of the system.The authorso ft he first exhibition sued the new director for introducing those changes and, thus, violating copyright laws.Of course, in the European context,the Second World Warand its legacyisa very sensitivet opic.But it is not the onlyone.Let'st hink, for example, of colonial and postcolonial narratives.But other topics also appear to be very sensi-VI Preface Lawa nd Justice( PrawoiSprawiedliwość)i saconservative party with strong nationalistic, conservative,a nd Catholic leanings.I tw as formed in 2001 by brothers Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński.AfterLechK aczyński'sdeath in an airplane crash near Smoleńsk in 2010,Jarosław became the sole leader of the party.Law and Justice wonelections and formed governments in Poland from 2005 to 2007 and from 2015 to the present. Sławomir Mrożek (1930 -2013) was aPolish writer and dramaturg, known for his satirical and absurdist style.