Holocaust scholars lose Polish libel case and must apologise for inaccuracies in book

A court in Warsaw has ruled that two leading Polish Holocaust scholars must apologise to the relative of a man whom they wrote had been involved in the murder of Jews. The libel trial has raised concern over academic freedom in Poland, in particular of research relating to the country’s difficult wartime history.

The case, which has been underway since 2019, pertained to a single paragraph in a 1,600-page, two-volume study edited by Barbara Engelking, director of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, and Jan Grabowski, a professor of history at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

In the book, entitled Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland, it is claimed that Edward Malinowski, the mayor of the village of Malinowo, had stolen from a Jewish women he rescued and had also been involved in the deaths of other Jews in hiding, who were handed over to the German Nazi occupiers.

Engelking and Grabowski were sued by Filomena Leszczyńska, the 80-year-old niece of Malinowski, who claimed that the researchers had defamed her deceased uncle. She demanded 100,000 zloty (€22,000) as compensation for tarnishing his honour.

In today’s ruling, full details of which have not yet been published, judge Ewa Jończyk rejected the compensation claim but ordered Engelking and Grabowski to publish a statement on the website of the Centre for Holocaust Research in which they should apologise for publishing “inaccurate information” and “damaging a man’s good name,” reports Gazeta Wyborcza.

They must also send such the statement to Leszczyńska by post and modify the paragraph in question in future editions of the book. The ruling can be appealed against, and it is reported that the scholars have already announced they will do so.

Leszczyńska’s case has been supported by the Polish League Against Defamation (Reduta Dobrego Imienia), a conservative NGO that receive states funding and seeks to address what it claims are inaccuracies about Polish history presented in academia and the media.

The libel complaint against Engelking and Grabowski said that the researchers “incorrectly verified historical sources” and conducted their work without “due diligence” and “scrupulousness”. In doing so, they misrepresented the actions of Malinowski, who had “selflessly hidden Jews”.

During their testimony, the scholars “admitted that there was an error and the biographies of two different men called Malinowski were merged into one person,” said Leszczyńska’s lawyer, Monika Brzozowska-Pasieka, quoted by state broadcaster TVP.

Speaking to The New York Times, Grabowski admits the study had mistakenly conflated two different mayors of the village who shared the same name. But he said that this had actually put Leszczyńska’s uncle in a better light by wrongly attributing acts of kindness towards Jews to him.

The libel complaint had called for all false information in the book to be corrected, and then either erased from future edition of the book or explained in footnotes.

Piotr Gontarczyk, a historian from the state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), argued, however, that making corrections is not enough. “The book should be written anew. It was created using methods that are totally unacceptable in academic research,” he said, quoted by Onet.

“If a historical source says that the firemen in Węgrowo were extinguishing a fire, but Professor Grabowski writes that they started it, you can’t call it history,” added Gontarczyk.

However, several Polish and international academic institutions have condemned the trial, decrying it as a threat to independent research on the Holocaust. They have also argued that the case is part of efforts by Poland’s conservative ruling camp to promote an idealised vision of Poles’ wartime conduct.

“We recognise the right to critical analysis and engagement in academic debate,” wrote researchers from the American Historical Association, the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the Polish Studies Association, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza.

“Yet suing Grabowski and Engelking for their research questions the essence of academic and intellectual independence,” they continued.

A similar statement was issued by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, which called the case “a serious attack on free and open research”. It is “unacceptable” to limit academic study “though judicial or political pressure”, it wrote.

The scholars themselves see the trial as political and designed to discourage others from conducting independent research in this field.

“Using NGOs funded by the government, a punch is being thrown at researchers,” Grabowski told Gazeta Wyborcza. “It is obviously not about the honour of Malinowski, but about the conduct of Polish historical policy.”

“In a normal world this case would have been dismissed long ago,” said Grabowski in a separate interview with The New York Times. “But Poland can no longer be considered a normal democracy.”

“This poses a huge threat to the freedom of speech,” Engelking told Oko.press, pointing out that Leszczyńka’s lawyer wants “national identity and pride” to be a legally protected personal right.

“This could mean that anyone who considers themselves a Pole would be able to sue anyone who said anything critical about the Polish nation and Polish state,” noted the scholar.

Debate over Holocaust history, long a difficult issue in Polish-Jewish relations, has become particularly heated in recent years. Since 2015, Poland’s conservative government has pursued an assertive “historical policy” to address what it claims has long been a “pedagogy of shame” designed to undermine Polish national identity.

To this end, in 2018 parliament passed what became known internationally as the “Holocaust law“, which introduced jail terms for those found to have falsely blamed the Polish nation or state for German crimes. The legislation was later partially withdrawn following intervention by Israel and the United States.

Grabowski, whose research has focused on crimes committed by ethnic Poles against during and after the war, has long been a target for criticism by those associated with Poland’s conservative ruling camp.

Main image credit: Dawid Zuchowicz / Agencja Gazeta

Agnieszka Wądołowska

Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna