Polish Historian: The Consequences of Bullying Holocaust Historians: Unwritten Books and Articles

D.Stola is professor of history at the Polish Academy of Sciences, former director of the Polish Museum of Jewish History.

After completing a five-year term at the museum, D. Stola entered the competition in the hope that it would expand, receiving 11 of 15 votes from the candidate review committee. However, the then Minister of Culture refused to reappoint him head of the institution.

We spoke with D.Stola a few days later when a Polish court ordered two prominent historians of the country apologize to the niece of an old man of the town. She claims that historians Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski in a monograph defamed a relative by writing that he had contributed to the massacre of Jews.

Indirect government intervention

– What does this court mean for historical research in Poland?

– The trial is not over yet, historians have already publicly stated that they will appeal the verdict. But even if it’s not a final verdict, I’m afraid the court has already had consequences. And very negative. The mere fact that historians can be sued for very limited comments.

In a 1,700-page book, the controversial passage is just one paragraph. It says that the old man from a village in eastern Poland helped a Jew survive the war and later possibly participated in the murder of a group of Jews.

This is a topic of discussion for Polish historians, a complex history in which both good and bad can be found.

The case was brought by a relative of this man, who complained of defamation because the man was actually a hero who helped the Jews during the war. And the court found itself in a very difficult position because non-historians had to decide what happened during the war. We do not have a written court decision yet, so I cannot comment on it, but we will analyze it and assess how accurate the judge’s decision was.

The most important aspect of this story for me is that historians were formally accused by a rural woman in eastern Poland, but behind it was the League Against Defamation, an organization close to the Polish ruling party.

The league chief had previously advised the Minister of Culture, and in recent years the organization has received generous grants from the state. The president of the league is currently the chairman of the supervisory board of the Polish press agency.

The organization of the payment of costs to the lawyers was a key factor in this court. We have indirect government intervention.

– Why does the government need this?

– That should be requested by the government. Some of its representatives do not like what historians write about Poland’s past, especially on sensitive topics such as the behavior of non-Jewish Poles in relation to the Jewish tragedy during the war.

They would like to say that all Poles were innocent, that they were heroes, that they helped the Jews. However, that’s not true.

Yes, there are many Poles who helped the Jews, but there are Poles who helped the Germans. This reveals the complexity of such a dramatic period as the German occupation of Poland.

– We have similar discussions in Lithuania. Why is it so difficult to recognize the crimes of the Holocaust in this region?

– One of the factors is undoubtedly the decades of communist rule. Open discussion was not possible then, especially on sensitive issues such as collaboration with the Germans or Jewish private property. Some people did not cooperate with the Germans, but blackmailed or robbed Jews who could not defend themselves and were not protected by law.

The Holocaust took place mainly in our countries: Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus. Most of the victims were Jews from Eastern Europe, and more than half of them were not deported to distant death camps, such as Jews from the Netherlands, Hungary or France. Eastern European Jews were killed on the spot and the locals were very close to that.

They could help victims or criminals. They could do this not only by acting but also by refusing to act. For example, hiding Jews or any other form of assistance for them was a serious crime, punishable by death. Even advising Jews was a crime. Counseling the Jews could have saved lives and the disclosure of the information to the German administration police could have destroyed them.

The scale of these moral dilemmas in the region is much larger than in Western Europe. Because there the occupation regime was not as brutal as in Eastern Europe.

– Do you think it will be easier to talk about complex moments in history in the future?

– If you had asked me that 10 years ago, I would have answered, obviously yes. At that time, there were important debates in Poland about the Holocaust, the most important, about the massacres in the village of Jedvabne.

I saw progress in the discussions, historians were invited to share their experience, and the media became increasingly interested. The president, religious leaders, participated in the discussions.

But something has changed. In recent years, we have seen a backlash: an increase in lies, fake news, intimidation of historians who deliberately distort the past.

– How are historians intimidated in Poland?

– I myself lost my job (at the Museum of Polish Jewish History – ed.). Many of my colleagues are slandered in the media, portrayed as anti-Polish, unpatriotic, as people who lie about Poland’s past.

And that has consequences. After reading the online comments below such articles, you will see a great deal of anti-Semitism and hostility towards historians.

– Does this already discourage historians from investigating?

– It’s very difficult to say. The consequences of such bullying are not what you can see. Those consequences are unwritten articles and books.

The Czech writer Milan Kundera has said that the scale of the dictatorship is the number of unwritten books. I don’t know how many books and articles were written because of this bullying.

– A recent poll shows that one in five Poles is positive about the decrease in the number of Jews in Poland during World War II. Is this the result of efforts in recent years to rewrite history? Or perhaps a reflection of the anti-Semitism that has always existed?

– It is inaccurate to say that anti-Semitism has always existed, since it is a very modern phenomenon that only emerged in the 19th century. at the end. Before that, there was an anti-religious attitude: anti-Judaism.

It was significantly superseded by pseudoscientific theories of race in the 19th century. pab. and the 20th century.

There is nothing eternal, but yes, there were quite influential anti-Semitic movements in Poland and Eastern Europe. The Polish Democratic Party, for example, was very anti-Semitic before the war. There were fascist organizations in all parts of the region.

However, in democratic Poland, the number of people who oppose anti-Semitism is growing. They realized that it was a poison that poisoned the moral and the soul. There were people who thought this way across the political spectrum, from left to right.

But something has changed. This is most likely related to the dynamics of social media – the fake news they spread.

Anti-Semitism is based on fake news, and the protocols of the Elders of Zion are a classic example of this. A new kind of fake news is spreading on social media.

– How can history and historical research help us heal historical trauma?

– They will not disappear easily, because World War II was an extremely dramatic period, with much cruelty and destruction.

The first thing we must do is speak. Frankly. Don’t try to hide anything.

If we owe something to the victims, not just to the Jews, but to many other people killed for other reasons, it is above all true. We have nothing to hide, we have to allow scientists to work, investigate and maybe finally find a way out.