A Polish court ruled on February 9 that two Holocaust scholars have to apologize to the family member of Edward Malinowski for stating in their book that he aided the Nazis in killing Jews.
The Jerusalem Post and ABC News reported that the Warsaw District Court concluded that Polish Center of Holocaust Research Professor Barbara Engelberg and University of Ottawa Professor Jan Grabowski included inaccurate information in their book about Malinowski, the former mayor of the Malinowo village. The 2018 book, titled “Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland,” claims that although Malinowski helped a Jewish woman escape Nazi-occupied Poland, he also robbed her and informed the Nazis of 18 Jews who were hiding in a Walinowo forest.
However, the Warsaw court explained that in 1947, a Polish court found Malinowski innocent, and the Jewish woman he saved, Estera Siemiatycka, had defended him in that trial. She only alleged Malinowski’s crimes to the USC Shoah Foundation in 1996 (Siemiatycka later acknowledged that she had lied to the 1947 court because Malinoswki helped her escape). Based on the 1947 ruling, the Warsaw court concluded that Engelberg and Grabowski need to apologize to Malinowski’s niece. Engelberg and Grabowski do not need to pay a fine.
Jewish groups denounced the ruling.
“By ordering the scholars to ‘apologize,’ it puts both historians and victims on trial and offers protection to the reputations of Poles and others who collaborated in the murder of Jews,” Mark Weitzman, Director of Government Affairs of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement. “This ruling opens the door to further intimidation of scholars and researchers and is clearly meant to whitewash unfortunate aspects of Polish history and to offer protection for antisemites.”
“This ruling opens the door to further intimidation of scholars and researchers and is clearly meant to whitewash unfortunate aspects of Polish history and to offer protection for antisemites.”
World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder similarly said in a statement, “It is simply unacceptable that historians should be afraid of citing credible testimony of Holocaust survivors. This outcome does not bode well for the future of historical research in Poland and sends precisely the wrong message to those who seek to stifle the work of scholars.”
The day before the ruling, The New York Times reported that the case is reflective of how the Law and Justice Party, the ruling party in Poland, “has sought to criminalize any questioning of Polish wartime heroism and poured money into research groups and museum projects that present Poland as Europe’s perpetual and entirely blameless victim.” In 2020, the Polish government changed its libel laws so any court case related to Poland’s role in the Holocaust won’t be subjected to court costs, which is what made the current lawsuit possible, according to the Times.
Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt tweeted out the Times story and wrote: “Poland is engaging in softcore Holocaust denial. It doesn’t deny the genocide. It just rewrites some Poles role in it… and punishes historians who tell the truth.”
via @NYTimes Poland is engaging in softcore Holocaust denial. It doesn’t deny the genocide. It just rewrites some Poles role in it… and punishes historians who tell the truth. https://t.co/KvZLf927bc
— Deborah E. Lipstadt (@deborahlipstadt) February 9, 2021
Grabowski and Engelberg have acknowledged a couple of errors in the book, but they argue that the errors don’t undermine the book’s premise that numerous Poles aided and abetted the Nazis during the Holocaust. Grabowski and Engelberg both edited the book and worked with several other researchers in writing and researching it. The ruling will be appealed.
