WARSAW – A Polish judge on Tuesday ordered two Holocaust scholars to apologize publicly for including “inaccurate information” in a two-part academic study that addressed the role of individual Poles in the murder of Jews during the Played World War II.
The order comes at the end of a careful trial brought by the nephew of a mayor from wartime, which, according to a Jewish survivor quoted in a 2018 study, was summed up with the murder of 18 Jews who took refuge the Nazis in a forest in eastern Poland.
But the judge, Ewa Jonczyk, rejected a claim for damages of $ 27,000 by her cousin Filomena Leszczynska, which was supported in her legal action by a partially funded organization that promotes the “good name of Poland and the surname protected the Polish nation. . ”
Judge Jonczyk said he ruled against awarding damages because court decisions “may not have a cooling effect on scientific research.” She also rejects the claim that the apology describes the mayor of the town of Malinowo, Edward Malinowski, as a ‘Jew-saving hero’. The book portrayed him as a thief and Nazi collaborator.
The libel case has raised alarm among Jewish groups and scholars around the world, who are concerned that the National Government of Poland, led by the Conservative law and justice party since 2015, wants to restrict independent research on the Massacre. The government has denied any involvement in the case.
Jan Grabowski, a Polish-Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa and a defendant in the case, told Wyborcza Gazeta, the leading liberal newspaper in Poland: ‘I find it difficult to accept this particular ruling. ‘ He said he would appeal.
The second accused is Barbara Engelking, a historian of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research. “I do not feel guilty,” she said in a video statement after the verdict.
Professor Engelking said that the issues “for which we should be excused have no basis.” She said that her report on the actions of the mayor in the war, which helped and betrayed Jews, was based on the testimony of a Jewish woman who he helped and also robbed after the war.
“This case shows that there are no black-and-white situations in the history of the Holocaust,” Professor Engelking said.
The two scholars edited ‘Night Without End’, a 1700-page study of Polish behavior during the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945. During that time, about three million Jews were killed in conquered Polish territory, mostly in Nazi death camps, but also sometimes by their Polish neighbors.
The book infuriated nationalists by describing the involvement of individual Poles in the murder of Jews. This is something that tried to avoid patriotic versions of Poland’s history, emphasizing the Polish suffering during World War II.
“The conclusion from the numbers is grim: two out of every three Jews who sought salvation died – mostly because of their Christian neighbors,” the scholars write in the introduction.
While refusing to award damages, the judge’s order that the scholars make an apology on Ms.’s website. Engelking’s research center must publish and make a written apology to me. Leszczynska, the cousin of the mayor, sent to achieve a victory for the Polish League against libelous driving force behind the case, and other nationalist outfits.
Maciej Swirski, the head of the league, welcomed the court’s ruling, post a message on Twitter that me. Leszczynska “fights for all of us so that we do not have to bear the stigma that historians attribute to us as perpetrators of the massacre.”
Jewish groups condemned the verdict.
“The history of the Holocaust requires independent scientific research that should not be subject to inappropriate pressure from politicians and the courts,” reads a statement from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, a major sponsor of historical research on the Holocaust, and the World Jewish Restitution Organization.