POland’s nationalists have won their latest battle to defend the country’s reputation for war. The Warsaw District Court on Tuesday ordered two prominent historians to apologize to a woman for slandering a family member in their book on the Holocaust. The important verdict has serious consequences for academic freedom and the future of Holocaust research, while historians around the world condemn the verdict.
“These are not cases that have to be judged by courts, it is a point that can be discussed by scholars or interested readers in the exchange of opinions. In that sense, it is really scandalous, “said Jan Tomasz Gross, whose original book Neighbors was a watershed in Poland’s public debate on the Holocaust more than twenty years ago. “It is part of a wide-ranging effort to stifle any investigation, and especially the complicity of the local population in the persecution of Jews during that time.”
In Night Without End, a two-part forensic history of nearly 1,700 pages, professors Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski focus on the plight of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland after the Nazis began liquidating the ghettos. The book contains a short passage based on the testimony of a survivor, Estera Siemiatycka, who accused Edward Malinowski, a village elder in Malinowo, northeastern Poland, of collaborating with the Nazis and a group of Jews hiding. , denounced.
Malinowski’s niece, 81-year-old Filomena Leszczyńska, sued the historians. The Polish League against Defamation funded the case, claiming in a lengthy statement that the historians had ‘damaged not only the reputation of Edward Malinowski but also other Poles, or even Poles’, accusing them of ‘careless use of historical’ sources’. The League is a handmaiden for the political agenda of Poland’s legal and justice party to burn the country’s war image. With the mission “to initiate and support actions to correct incorrect information about the history of Poland”, the League has sued those accused of defaming Poland, including international media.
The Crusade of Law and Justice to promote the heroism of Poland under Nazi occupation and to end what he calls ‘the pedagogy of shame’ provoked an international outcry three years ago when it passed legislation discussing the banned Polish responsibility in the Holocaust. Leszczyńska and her supporters followed a different legal path in their case against Engelking and Grabowski, claiming that the historians had violated her personal rights. The court conceded that the claim of the right to ‘respect for the memory of a family member’ had been violated, but dismissed the other claims and awarded no damages, saying the verdict was not intended to stifle academic research. The historians appeal the verdict.
“I really have doubts about this verdict,” said lawyer Michał Jabłoński, who acted for the defense. ‘It is dangerous for freedom of speech and academic research. It is unprecedented that the court decides which historical source is reliable instead of researchers. This ruling requires that testimonies of survivors be verified before being published anywhere, and that researchers must be 100% sure that testimonies are accurate before publishing conclusions, especially if they consider someone’s misconduct. According to the court, the existence of other sources that are in conflict with the evidence of a survivor should prevent researchers from publishing their research if it interferes with someone’s personal rights. Such a standard makes historical research a dangerous work, actually impossible, since testimonies of survivors in most cases cannot be confirmed. ”
International organizations and academics also quickly condemned ruling. Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem said it was “deeply upset about its implications.” Sascha Feuchert, director of the Work Literature Holocaust Literature at the University of Giessen, Germany, said: “For many Holocaust incidents, we only have the testimony of survivors. This should, of course, be checked and discussed as far as possible in academic debates. But this court ruling and its conclusions not only threaten the foundations of research based on testimony of survivors, but it can also be a gift to Holocaust deniers. ‘
Before World War II, the Jewish population of Poland numbered more than three million, the largest Jewish community at that time. Only 10% survived. But during the war Poland saved more Jews than any other country and is revered in Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. Night Without End, however, provides evidence that Poles participated on a larger scale in the murder of their fellow Jewish citizens than previously believed, and estimates that two out of every three Jews attempted to seek refuge among non-Jews Poland, is dead. The history of wartime Poland includes barbarism along with heroism, something that is bitterly disputed by ruling powers.
Estera Siemiatycka was one of the minorities who survived – and it is her testimony in Night Without End that historians Engelking and Grabowski must now apologize for. Her story is a devastating insight into the destruction of the Jewish community in Poland; Engelking published a detailed report of her story based on various sources on the website of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research, where she is director.
Siemiatycka fled the Drohiczyn ghetto in northeastern Poland after being destroyed by the Nazis and deporting most of its inhabitants to the Treblinka death camp. She hid in a forest with her young son, who was less than two years old, her sister and her two children, who were all captured and killed while Siemiatycka was looking for food. She reached the town of Malinowo and turned to the village elder, Edward Malinowski, for help. He helped her escape as a forced laborer from Poland to Prussia, Germany.
After the war, Malinowski was executed for allegedly collaborating with the Nazis and betraying a group of Jews who had been hidden. Siemiatycka testified in defense, saying he saved her life and helped other Jews, and he was acquitted. However, in an interview with the Shoah Foundation in 1996, under her new name Maria Wiltgren, she accused Malinowski of collaborating and robbed her. Engelking, who recorded Siemiatycka’s testimony in Night Without End, found this later testimony the most reliable in the reconstruction of the story.
It’s a complicated story, given Siemiatycka’s contradictory testimony. However, as Engelking noted, the passage in her book reports on the survivor’s account; it’s a matter of record. The judge said the historians had to limit their confidence in Siemiatycka because of the inconsistencies.
Prior to Malinowski’s trial, an anti-communist gang intimidated and beat witnesses, some of whom then changed their testimony. This may explain why Siemiatycka’s own accounts clash. She may also, as Engelking suggested, simply be grateful to Malinowski for saving her life at the time of the trial.
There are fears that the courts, rather than the academic community, have become the arena for testing scholarships and that threats against academics and journalists in Poland are becoming routine. Earlier this month, police questioned journalist Katarzyna Markusz for writing: “Jewish hatred was widespread among Poles, and Poland’s participation in the Holocaust is a historical fact.”
Mikołaj Grynberg, an author who has documented Polish-Jewish reports in his books, believes that the state’s agenda to promote Polish heroism is contrary to historical truth. “The goal is to feel good and to be a chosen people – we are the only nation that has only noble people among us,” he says. ‘It’s adolescent thinking and bad news that we are not becoming a mature country. So it will stay that way for years. ”
Siemiatycka’s story is only a side issue in Night Without End; the focus of the book is on the fate of Jews in Poland, while Siemiatycka survived by escaping to Germany. But for the nationalists, this case is ammunition in their attempt to intimidate anyone who dares to investigate the truth. In the forthcoming English translation of Night Without End, Engelking and Grabowski hope that their work will no longer make it possible to discuss Poland’s past on the basis of sentiments, resentments or myths, but that it will be firmly based on sound historical knowledge’. Their case – and their appeal – is the first test.