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Feb. 8, 2021
Readers who have been following the stories written by Haaretz correspondent Ofer Aderet on the research of historian Jan Grabowski (Haaretz, Jan. 18, Jan. 27 and Jan. 31, 2021) could reach the conclusion that Poland is now conducting a trial that resembles the famous Dreyfus trial that took place in France at the end of the 19th century.
Prof. Grabowski, a Polish historian who lives in Canada today and teaches at Ottawa University, and whose Jewish father fought in the Warsaw Revolt in 1944, has published ground-breaking research on the relations between Polish society and the Jews during the period of the Nazi occupation, and on Polish participation in the murder of Jews.
A Massacre in a Forest Becomes a Test of Polandâs Pushback on Wartime Blame
Two researchers are on trial for writing that a Polish mayor was complicit in a massacre. Critics say the government is trying to emphasize Polish suffering in World War II and downplay complicity in Nazi crimes.
âThe war ended 75 years ago, but it still lives on in our bones. It will last forever,â Zygmunt Malinowski recalled last week during a visit to the forest memorial stone, right, where Jews were killed in the early 1940s.Credit.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times
Feb. 8, 2021
MALINOWO, Poland â From a forest on the edge of this tiny village in eastern Poland, a distant and mostly forgotten local horror is reverberating widely. It has cast a pall over the 30 villagers who live nearby, reached into a courtroom in Warsaw, and is now radiating distress around the world over the rewriting of Holocaust history.
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Feb. 4, 2021
The Polish ambassador to Israel has rejected criticism of the libel trial underway in his country against two Holocaust historians, defending what he called the plaintiff’s “right to defend the memory of her close relative, in a letter to the Israeli head of a group that represents survivors.
Ambassador Marek Magierowski wrote in the letter posted on his Twitter feed on Wednesday that “granting blanket immunity to historians is a risky concept, to say the least.” The letter was addressed to Colette Avital, a former Israeli diplomat and lawmaker currently chairwoman of the center of organizations of Holocaust survivors.
Future of Holocaust research in Poland hinges on libel case
Vanessa Gera
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1943 AP
FILE - In this 1943 photo, a group of Polish Jews are led away for deportation by German SS soldiers, during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto by German troops after an uprising in the Jewish quarter. Two Polish historians are facing a libel trial for a scholarly examination of Polish behavior during World War II, a case whose outcome is expected to determine the fate of independent Holocaust research under Polands nationalist government. A verdict is expected Feb. 9. (AP Photo, B/W File)
WARSAW – Two Polish historians are facing a libel trial for a scholarly examination of Polish behavior during World War II, a case whose outcome is expected to determine the fate of independent Holocaust research under Poland’s nationalist government.