Holocaust Scholarship on Trial

(New York, NY) – On February 9, 2021 in Poland, Jan Grabowksi and Barbara Engelking were found guilty of defamation for the book they co-edited, Dalej jest noc: losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski [Night Without End: The Fate of the Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland].

Their book contradicts the widely promoted official position in Poland that Poles were exclusively the victims of war-time atrocities, and heroes rescuing Jews on a massive scale. The legal proceedings and other forms of harassment and intimidation attack the very foundation of a free and open society. Attempting to quash academic and public discourse through political or judicial pressure raises serious concerns about the future of independent Holocaust scholarship in Poland. 

In response to these disturbing events, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in conjunction with the Jewish Studies Program at Bard College presents Holocaust Scholarship on Trial, taking place on Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 12:00pm (ET). This event will be Grabowski’s first public appearance since the trial. In conversation with journalist Masha Gessen, Professor Grabowski will discuss his response to the verdict as well as its political and scholarly implications.

“The politicization of scholarship and scholarly inquiry has been a dangerous weapon of authoritarian states throughout history but particularly in the twentieth century with devastating results in 1930s Germany and the Soviet Union,” notes YIVO’s Executive Director Jonathan Brent. "It has also been a powerful weapon in Holocaust denial, Holocaust revisionism and the growth of modern antisemitism. We are grateful to Jan Grabowski, an eminent Polish scholar of the Holocaust, who will speak Tuesday about his recent trial in Poland which has attacked his and Barbara Engelking’s research on the subject of the Holocaust in Poland.”

Night Without End documents the range of Polish behavior towards Jews during the Holocaust in a series of local case studies. The Polish League against Defamation, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of the niece of a figure discussed in the book, has close ties to the right-wing ruling Law and Justice Party. The lawsuit is widely viewed as a continuation of the government’s campaign to stifle free inquiry into Poland’s wartime history. The Warsaw court found Grabowski and Engelking guilty of defamation, declining to fine the scholars but demanding that they issue an apology.

Learn more about Tuesday’s event, taking place on Zoom: yivo.org/Holocaust-Scholarship-on-Trial.

For more information contact:
Alex Weiser
Chief of Staff

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Jan Grabowski is Professor of History at the University of Ottawa. His books include Polacy, nic się nie stało! Polemiki z Zagładą w tle [Poles, Nothing Happened! Polemics with the Holocaust in the Background] (2021); Na posterunku: Udział polskiej policji granatowej i kryminalnej w zagładzie Żydów [On Duty: Participation of Blue and Criminal Police in the Destruction of the Jews], (2020); Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (2013), which won the Yad Vashem International Book Prize; and "Ja Tego Żyda Znam!": Szantażowanie Żydów w Warszawie, 1939-1943 [“I Know that Jew!”: The Blackmailing of Jews in Warsaw, 1939-1943] (2004). He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and has held fellowships and guest professorships at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Munich), the University of Haifa, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Yad Vashem.

Masha Gessen is Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College. Gessen is a staff writer at The New Yorker and author of 11 books of nonfiction, most recently Surviving Autocracy (2020); as well as The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, which won the 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction; and The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012). The Moscow-born Gessen is the recipient of Guggenheim, Andrew Carnegie, and Nieman Fellowships, Hitchens Prize, Overseas Press Club Award for Best Commentary, and an honorary doctorate from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story