A Polish court has ordered historians to apologize for the Holocaust book

Two well-known Polish scholars, Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, have sued the 81-year-old cousin of the war town for arguing that a book they were compiling damages her brother’s memory. father by suggesting that he had a place in the deaths of people. . The uncle is described in a short section of a 1,600-page historical work, “Night Without End: The Fate of Causes in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland.”

Poland’s national law and justice party (PiS) has said it sees any investigation into concerns by Poles in killing wartime claims as dishonesty of the country.

The researchers said they would appeal against the decision.

The woman, Filomena Leszczynska, is backed by the Polish League Against Defamation, a group that fights against harmful and untrue images of Poland. He argues that the woman’s uncle, Edward Malinowski, was a hero who helped save during World War II and accuses scholars of investigative errors that led to Malinowski appearing as someone who betrayed allegations to the Germans.

Malinowski was found not guilty in 1950 of being a supporter for killing with 18 Germans killed in a forest near the town of Malinowo in 1943.

The anti-defamation group says the authors hated an innocent man and lost her daughter, including a right to pride and national identity. The plaintiffs are suing Grabowski and Engelking for 100,000 zlotys ($ 27,000) in damages and published apology.

Grabowski, professor of Polish-Canadian history at the University of Ottawa, and Engelking, founder and director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, are among the most prominent researchers in Poland. They were among several who studied and wrote aspects of the two-volume work.

They view the case as an attempt to discredit their overall findings and discourage other researchers from examining the facts of Poland’s involvement in the massacre of the country’s arguments. Germany.

The plaintiff’s lawyer, Monika Brzozowska-Pasieka, denied that any attempt had been made to obstruct an investigation or speech. She said it was a civil matter brought by people who feel they or their families have been harmed.

“The regulation will determine whether the sources have been properly studied by the researchers, have properly assessed those sources and applied an appropriate research methodology,” Brzozowska-Pasieka said in report to The Associated Press.

Nazi Poland lived in Poland during the war and its people were massacred and enslaved. While 3 million of the country’s 3.3 million people were murdered, more than 2 million were mostly Polish Christians. Poles opposed the Nazis at home and abroad and never cooperated as a state with the Third Reich. Thousands of Poles have been identified by Yad Vashem in Israel for saving their own lives.

But among more than five years of office, there were also some Poles who betrayed suspicion to the Germans. The topic was taboo at the time of communism and every new publication of Polish crimes in recent years has revived.

The book’s issue has raised concerns internationally as it falls within the scope of a wider state-sponsored historical crime.

Last week, a journalist, Katarzyna Markusz, was questioned by police over suspicions of extinction of Poland, a crime punishable by up to three years in prison, for an article citing “com Polish participation in the Holocaust. “

Jewish leaders in Poland issued a statement Monday saying they had seen intense efforts to “repel historians and journalists … who are trying to undermine the veracity of Polish investigations under the post. “

Polish detention authorities do not deny that some Poles harmed allegations, but believe that the focus on Polish crime maintains that the majority of incidents occurred. of those killed under German command and terror. Many Poles like the government’s push against what he calls “shameful education”.

The Polish League Against Defamation is ideally aligned with the country’s ruling party, and scholars see it as a sign that the case is part of a government-backed effort to make its historic statement. promote.

“Night Without End” focuses on the fares of people who fled as the Nazis melted ghettos and sent residents to concentration camps. It records cases of suspects who tried to hide, with survivors doing so with the support of Poles. It also reveals widespread evidence of individual Poles cooperating in spying investigations into the Nazis.

At the heart of the case is evidence given in 1996 by a Jewish woman, born Estera Siemiatycka, to the USC Shoah Foundation, a Los Angeles-based organization that collects oral history from the Holocaust era. When she spoke, she had changed her name to Maria Wiltgren.

Malinowski, an elder of Malinowo, was described by Wiltgren, who is no longer alive, as someone who helped her live under the “Aryan” identity by being sent to a group of deported Poles in Germany. after her purchase. fake papers. But she also said he lured her out of money and property. Two of her sons confirmed that she considered him a “bad man.”

The book states that Wiltgren realized that “he was a supporter in the deaths of several dozen units that had been hiding in the woods and had been turned over to the Germans, but she false testimony in his defense at his post-war trial. “

Engelking, who wrote the chapter, acknowledged one mistake. In the book she mentioned that while Wiltgren was in Germany during the war, she traded with Malinowski.

The book did not make it clear that this was a different one with the same name. Engelking said the error had no bearing on the larger question of the city’s elder’s conduct toward him.

Plaintiff’s lawyer, Brzozowska-Pasieka, also told other details that she believes the authors went wrong, including the difference between 18 people killed and a reference Engelking on several dozen deaths. Engelking states that she believes that these are not key issues, and that her critics would not find any other real flaw in the book.