The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem said on Thursday that he was “deeply moved” by the impact of a Polish libel case in which two prominent Holocaust investigators were ordered to apologize to a woman for being alleging that she disrespected her uncle for what he had done during the war.
Lawyers for Filomena Leszczynska, 81, argued that the scholars had persuaded her late uncle, Edward Malinowski, to believe that he had helped fight in World War II.
The family say he was saved during German work in Poland.
Involved in the case was the Polish national pride, according to the protesters, and according to the defendants, the future of an independent investigation into a highly sensitive case.
In a statement, Yad Vashem stressed the importance of academic freedom and said any attempt to restrict it through political or legal pressure was “inappropriate.”
He defended the two researchers, Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, and wrote the book they were co-editing and writing in part: “Night Without End: The Fate of Research in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland. “
“Like all research, this book on the Holocaust fighting is part of an ongoing debate and is therefore subject to criticism in academia, but not in courts. , “said Yad Vashem.
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.
The University of Ottawa issued a statement pledging its “unwavering support” for Grabowski and reiterating his commitment to academic freedom.
Nazi Poland lived in Poland during the war and its people were massacred and enslaved.
Three 3 million of the country’s 3.3 million people were murdered, along with more than 2 million mostly Polish Christians.
Some Poles opposed the Nazis at home and abroad and never cooperated as a nation with the Third Reich. Thousands of Poles have been identified by Yad Vashem for risking their lives to save crimes.
But among more than five years of office, there were also Poles who betrayed suspects to the Germans.
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Survivors return to Auschwitz death camp in Poland on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2019
(Photo: AP)
The topic was taboo at the time of communism and every new publication of Polish crimes in recent years has revived.
Leszczynska has received support from the Polish League Against Registration, which is in a thoughtful way with the Polish ruling party. The scholars see the issue as part of a government-backed effort to improve its historical narrative.
Stanislaw Zaryn, criticizing the Polish secret services, accused the media of “mocking Poland in the international arena” and undermining the country’s “information security” by case statement.