{"id":36403,"date":"2021-02-26T03:29:08","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T11:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=36403"},"modified":"2021-02-24T22:43:15","modified_gmt":"2021-02-25T06:43:15","slug":"court-verdict-on-grabowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/02\/26\/court-verdict-on-grabowski\/","title":{"rendered":"Court verdict on Grabowski"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan Grabowski (photo from facebook.com\/TheCJN<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A Polish court\u2019s ruling that a Canadian Holocaust scholar must apologize for tarnishing the memory of a wartime mayor in Poland continues to reverberate around the world.<\/p>\n

The case is being condemned by Jewish organizations and historians as an attack on free academic inquiry. Scholars warn the ruling could further chill an already touchy area of research: the role played by Poles in the murder of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland.<\/p>\n

In a long-awaited ruling on Feb. 9, a civil court in Warsaw ordered two prominent Holocaust scholars to apologize to an elderly woman who claimed they had defamed her late uncle over his wartime actions.<\/p>\n

Prof. Jan Grabowski, an historian at the University of Ottawa, and Prof. Barbara Engelking, a sociologist and founder of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research, were accused of defaming Edward Malinowski, the wartime mayor of Malinowo, a village in northeast Poland, by suggesting in a book that he delivered several dozen Jews to Nazi occupiers.<\/p>\n

The professors were ordered to apologize for a passage in Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland<\/em>, a two-volume work they co-edited, which the court said \u201cviolated Malinowski\u2019s honour\u201d by \u201cproviding inaccurate information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court declined a demand for monetary damages of 100,000 Polish zlotys (about $34,000 Cdn) but ordered the scholars to apologize to Malinowski\u2019s niece, 81-year-old Filomena Leszczynska, who brought the case; publish a statement on the website of the Centre for Holocaust Research; and correct the passage in any future edition.<\/p>\n

Leszczynska had argued that her uncle had actually aided Jews and was acquitted of collaboration in 1950.<\/p>\n

Grabowski, whose father survived the Holocaust, called the outcome \u201ca sad day for the history of the Holocaust in Poland and beyond Poland. I have no idea what will be the consequences as well as the implications of this trial. But I can say for certain this thing will be studied for a long time by historians,\u201d he told the Globe and Mail<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Prior to the verdict, he warned that, if the lawsuit were successful, \u201cthen basically it will mean the end to the independent writing of the history of the Holocaust in Poland.\u201d<\/p>\n

The professors were sued under a Polish law allowing for civil action against anyone claiming that the Polish nation or state was responsible for Nazi atrocities. The law was amended in 2018 to drop plans to criminalize the offence.<\/p>\n

In her ruling, the judge said the decision \u201cmust not have a cooling effect on academic research,\u201d but that is how it is being perceived.<\/p>\n

As a senior tenured professor, the verdict, Grabowski conceded in a Postmedia interview from Poland, is \u201cunpleasant. But, imagine you are a 25-year-old graduate student of history. Do you think you\u2019re going to embark upon discovery of difficult history? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grabowski and Engelking said they will appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n

Mina Cohn, director of the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship at Carleton University in Ottawa, called the campaign against Grabowski and Engelking \u201cugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Polish government\u2019s attempt to discredit them, and to silence and distort the historical facts of the Holocaust in Poland is appalling,\u201d Cohn told The CJN<\/em>. \u201cIt endangers the basic right of the future freedom of historical research of the Holocaust in that country.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that, as daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors with roots in Poland, \u201cI find this blatant attempt by the Polish government to reject the reality of inherent antisemitism within Polish society before and during the Holocaust, and to discredit survivors\u2019 testimonies, very offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Prof. Piotr Wrobel, a specialist in Polish history at the University of Toronto\u2019s Munk School of Global Affairs, the case is an example of the current Polish government\u2019s attempt to control the historical record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey try to shape the \u2018official\u2019 version and persecute people who do not share [it],\u201d he told The CJN<\/em>. \u201cThis is very sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was \u201cvery clearly\u201d the intention of those behind the lawsuit \u201cto freeze scholarly research into the Holocaust. This was supposed to be a warning. Young people should remember this. If your opinions [and] historical interpretations are different than the official ones, then do not touch the Holocaust,\u201d Wrobel said. \u201cThere is a choice between comfort and truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement on Feb. 10, the University of Ottawa offered its \u201cunwavering support\u201d to Grabowski and his \u201cwidely respected\u201d Holocaust research. The university called the verdict \u201cunjust.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProf. Grabowski\u2019s critical examination of the fate of Polish Jews during World War II shows how knowledge of the past remains vitally relevant today,\u201d said university president Jacques Fr\u00e9mont. \u201cThe impact his work has had in Poland, and the censorious reaction it has generated, demonstrates this truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The university \u201cemphatically supports\u201d Grabowski\u2019s \u201cright to pursue historical inquiry unencumbered by state pressure, free from legal sanction and without fear of extrajudicial attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Israel, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum decried the ruling as \u201can attack on the effort to achieve a full and balanced picture of the history of the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before the verdict, David Silberklang, a senior Holocaust historian in Israel, said the libel case intended for the two scholars to be \u201csued into submission.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision \u201cdamages an open and honest coming to terms with the past,\u201d said Gideon Taylor, president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which sponsors historical research on the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

Taylor said Poland \u201cmust encourage open inquiry into its history, both the positive and the negative aspects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canadian historian Frank Bialystok, who has written extensively about the Holocaust, sees the verdict against Grabowski and Engelking as a flipping of political extremes in Poland.<\/p>\n

The murder of Jews in Poland, even after the war, was documented at the time. \u201cThis research was acceptable during the communist era as a weapon against nationalism,\u201d said Bialystok. Now, the two professors are being \u201cvilified\u201d by the nationalist camp.<\/p>\n

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre said the ruling could have \u201ca devastating impact on Holocaust research and education.\u201d The organization said it is reaching out to senior government leaders, urging them to speak out against \u201cHolocaust distortion in Poland.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American Historical Association went so far as to write Polish President Andrzej Duda, saying \u201ca legal procedure is not the place to mediate historical debates\u201d and urged Polish leaders to \u201cuphold the rights of historians to investigate the past without legal harassment and with no fear of reprisals for making public their historical- and evidence-based findings.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018, Grabowski announced he was suing the government-funded group that backed Leszczynska\u2019s libel case for allegedly libeling him. He claimed that the ultranationalist Polish League Against Defamation had itself defamed him by questioning his findings about the complicity of Poles in the wartime murder of Jews.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article originally was published on facebook.com\/TheCJN. For more on Prof. Jan Grabowski, see jewishindependent.ca\/revealing-truth-elicits-threats.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jan Grabowski (photo from facebook.com\/TheCJN) A Polish court\u2019s ruling that a Canadian Holocaust scholar must apologize for tarnishing the memory of a wartime mayor in Poland continues to reverberate around the world. The case is being condemned by Jewish organizations and historians as an attack on free academic inquiry. Scholars warn the ruling could further […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36404,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[801,20340,2873,4242,53,8500,4582],"class_list":["post-36403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-antisemitism","tag-filomena-leszczynska","tag-free-speech","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-jan-grabowski","tag-poland"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}