If you click here you will get to an article in The Guardian by Jo Glanville. It comments on reports a that the authors of a study on the fate of Polish Jews under Nazism have been told to apologise to a woman for defaming her uncle.
“In Night Without End, a forensic two-volume history that totals nearly 1,700 pages, professors Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski focus on the fate of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland after the Nazis began liquidating the ghettoes in 1942. The book includes a brief passage based on the testimony of a survivor, Estera Siemiatycka, who accused Edward Malinowski, a village elder in Malinowo, north-east Poland, of collaborating with the Nazis and denouncing a group of Jews in hiding.
Malinowski’s niece, 81-year-old Filomena Leszczyńska, sued the historians. The Polish League Against Defamation financed the case, claiming in a lengthy statement that the historians had damaged “the reputation not only of Edward Malinowski, but also other Poles, or even Poland” and accused them of “careless use of historical sources”. The League is a handmaiden to Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party’s political agenda to burnish the country’s wartime image. With the mission “to initiate and support actions aimed at correcting false information on Poland’s history”, the League has pursued cases against those accused of defaming Poland, including international media outlets.
The Law and Justice Party’s crusade to promote Poland’s heroism under Nazi occupation and end what it calls “the pedagogy of shame” attracted an international outcry three years ago, when it passed legislation outlawing discussion of Polish responsibility in the Holocaust.”
Something to discuss in History Society.
- Why is history being re-written here?
- Does this happened in Britain?
- Are we better at noticing this in other countries? If so why?
Mr Kydd.
