Vilamovians are an ethnic group living in a small town of Wilamowice (in Wymysorys language called “Wymysoü”, located on the borderland of Silesia and Lesser Poland. What is important among various markers of Vilamovian identification is common culture, common history and the awareness of their ethnic distinctness. These three markers are visible in memoir-based stories of Vilamovians about the postwar persecutions. The analysis of these stories shows that Vilamovians belong to more than one community of memory. The borders between these communities divide families too. The main goal of the author was to analyze the presence of celebration in the stories about postwar persecutions told by the members of the Vilamovian-centric community of memory. The interviewees did not describe the changes in celebrations over the years, they rather used the stories about celebrations to show how difficult those times had been for them. The stories about particular women wearing the Vilamovian dress during processions and being punished for it became fictionalized and folklorized – the stories got standardized and adjusted to the particular needs of the group. All the stories told by the members of the Vilamovian-centric community of memory concerned the Corpus Christi procession, even if persecutions concerned other types of processions too. These stories are full of topoi which construct the positive image of “us” – Vilamovians, and the negative one of “the others” – Poles and the Red Army soldiers.
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