Polish Ire Over Factual Holocaust History

"I will not finance an institute that maintains the kind of people who simply insult Poles."

"[Poles] were the greatest allies of the Jews, and if it had not been for the Poles, many Jews would have died, many more than were killed in the Holocaust."

Polish Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek

 

"[Engelking's comments represent] scandalous opinions [they are an] anti-Polish narrative."

"We know that there could be tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of such cases [of Poles recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, for having helped to save the lives of Jews during World War II]."

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Moraiecki

 

"[The] political attack [on researcher-historian Barbara Engelking are representative of censorious tendencies to be regarded] ...as extremely dangerous and unacceptable."

"We object to the idea of making a subject that calls for meticulous and nuanced research -- as carried out by Professor Engelking -- part of an election campaign."

Letter of protest with over 600 signatures of Holocaust scholars 

"[The feelings of disappointment expressed by Jews during the war are a [fact; they appear in almost every account of those who survived the Holocaust, as well as those who managed to leave a record of their fate, but did not survive."

"The essence of scientific research is a dispute, but a brutal personal attack on a scientist and an outstanding authority in her field cannot be called a dispute."

The POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews 

Polish researcher Barbara Engelking, left, attends a news conference alongside Holocaust survivor Krystyna Budnicka about an exhibition in the Warsaw ghetto at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland, on April 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

"A non-Jewish Polish resistance fighter hid my father-in-law in his attic for nine months."

" He took immense risks, for him and his family. He was afraid of being denounced by his neighbours."

"After the war, my father-in-law asked for the man to be recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem."

Reuven, husband of Michaela Najberg 

 

"It’s very moving to see this exhibition."

“We’ve grown up with our grandfather’s stories. This exhibition is amazing and we have no resentment about what happened."

"Polish fascists supported the Nazis but it was Poles who protected my grandfather after the Ghetto’s destruction in 1943 and until the Liberation."

"And now Poland is a democracy. I live in London where I have many Polish friends in London. You can’t judge someone on their great-grandparents’ behaviour. My friends are good people, we share the same values."

Edan Najberg, 35

Visitors perusing the “Around Us a Sea of Fire” exhibition at the Polin museum in Poland on April 18, 2023.  David Gormezano, France 24

Polish researcher-historian Barbara Engelking, renowned for the level of her scholarship has come under fire from authorities in Poland who took umbrage at her statement that Poles could have done more to help Jews during the Holocaust. In a television interview that took place a week ago, the historian noted that Polish Jews felt disappointed in their Polish neighbours during the war, as she referred to what she described as "wide-spread blackmailing" of Jews by Poles during the country's Nazi German occupation.

Since that interview, both the historian and the independent television broadcaster faced threats including the threat of consequences by Polish government institutions, all of which succeeded in transforming the matter from a furor over historical accuracy -- as opposed to injury to national pride, and turning the issue into an item for the country's political campaign leading up to a fall election in Poland.

 

Pro-government media in support of Poland's conservative government describe historian Engelking's remarks as an attack on the nation committed by one of their own, accusing her of distorting the historical record, failing to give due credit to Poles who risked and occasionally lost their lives in their determination to give aid to their Jewish neighbours.

This is, in fact an ongoing controversy, part of an emotional debate in Poland over Polish-Jewish relations that has rumbled for years. The issue of the manner in which Poles behaved toward Jews during the war -- when brutal crimes were committed by the German occupation against Poles considered to be similar to how Jews were viewed by Nazi Germany subhuman -- and against Jews scheduled for extermination has caused limitless friction for years.

During the German occupation of Poland, some Poles aided Jews despite such help proffered to a people doomed to death being an act punishable by execution by occupation forces. There were Poles who denounced or blackmailed Jews, their motivation pure antisemitism along with personal gain. And then there were the Poles whose lives were consumed with fear, seeking to survive the war and choosing non-involvement in the perils faced by others.

Polish nationalists insist that though some Poles preyed on Jews, a generalization of society at large is unwarranted. Scholarship highlighting Poles who betrayed Jews in their opinion represents a historical distortion when the reality, they claim is a history of Polish heroism of those who resisted the German occupation. Statements such as Researcher Engelking's they assert, risks shifting responsibility of German crimes to Poles.

The controversial statements were spoken on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising while the researcher was being interviewed by private broadcaster TVN, relating to an exhibition she had helped to curate on the fate of civilians in the ghetto: "Around Us A Sea of Fire", which saw its opening a week ago. In response, the Prime Minister of Poland referred to over 7,000 Poles recognized as righteous gentiles by Israel's Holocaust institute, Yad Vashem.

Poland's minister of education threatened the institution where historian Engelking works -- the Polish Center for Holocaust Research, part of the Polish Academy of Sciences -- to have their funding reviewed. Jews had lived in Poland for a thousand years in the thousands of years of the Diaspora. At the time of the Second World War there were 3.3 million Polish Jews, only 380,000 of whom managed somehow to survive the ordeal of mass extermination, Nazi Germany's institutionalized 'Final Solution'.

Three million non-Jewish Polish citizens were targets of Nazi Germany's plan to rid the world of 'sub-human' trash. Now, Poland's state broadcasting authority has launched an investigation into TVN, owned by the U.S. company Warner Bros. Discovery. A report by the broadcaster claiming that St.John Paul II had covered up instances of clerical abuse in his native Poland before becoming Pope has also brought it government criticism.

Critics of the government view the situation as an attempt to exploit the issue in hopes of swaying voters prior to the election, since the ruling party is at risk of losing votes to a far-right party, which has been surging in popularity. Leading Poland's Liberal media and commentators to give warning that media and academic freedoms are being stifled.

"The government is playing a political game [with a 2018 bill which punishes 'whoever accuses, publicly and against the facts, the Polish nation, or the Polish state, of being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich by a fine or a penalty of imprisonment of up to three years']. They’re manipulating the statistics of the people who helped the Jews during the war. They exaggerate the figures because they only want to hear about this version of history. It’s a narrative that appeals to many people, the story of the Poles who helped the Jews, but it does not reflect the historical reality at all." 

"In my family, my grandfather’s brother was denounced by one of his childhood friends and killed by the Germans. However, his son was sheltered by another Polish family during the war and survived. So it’s complicated."

"By wanting to forbid people from speaking out against the Poles that collaborated with the Germans, the government is politicizing history. This isn’t just about limiting public debate and threatening academics and all those who research the Holocaust. Jewish organizations continue to protest against this law."

Krzysztof Izdebski,  lawyer, former leader of the Jewish community in Poland

Anette Weynszteyn (centre), stands beneath a photo of her mother. Suzana Schnepf-Kolacz, the exhibition curator, and Polish historian Barbara Engelking, are to her right and left at the POLIN museum on April 18, 2023.  David Gormezano, FRANCE 24