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Feb. 12, 2021
On November 5, 1942, the Germans destroyed the Drohyczin Jewish ghetto in the Bialystok region of Poland. About 1,500 of its residents were loaded onto trains and sent to the Treblinka death camp. The night before the ghetto’s destruction, Estera Siemiatycka fled with her toddler son, as well as with her sister and her sister’s daughters.
Initially, they found refuge with a Polish acquaintance and then fled into the forest. According to Siemiatycka’s testimony, one day when she set out to find food, Polish farmers raided their hiding place, arrested Siemiatycka’s sister and the children and turned them in to the Germans. All of them were shot to death. Despite the tribulations that Siemiatycka suffered after that, she survived the war.
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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.
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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.
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Jan. 31, 2021
The Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum expressed support for two Polish historians who are facing a civil libel trial in Warsaw for their publication of historical research on Polish crimes against Jews during the Holocaust, saying the proceedings against them is an assault on Holocaust research.
The case centers around the book “Dalej jest noc” ( Night without End, ), which was published in Poland in 2018 and was jointly edited by Prof. Barbara Engelking and Prof. Jan Grabowski. It includes the testimony of Estera Drogicka, a woman who survived the Holocaust and who recounted that a village mayor who saved her had also robbed her and turned in about 20 other Jews to the Germans.
A history book referring to the role of a Polish mayor – in saving or murdering Jews – has triggered a libel suit that is testing freedom of speech and being closely watched in the academic world