LONDON AND MOSCOW – An unusual case of slander in Poland over the Holocaust has the potential to affect both the future of academic research and the way the country faces its treatment of Jews during World War II, they say. lawyers.
The case is the first of its kind brought in Polish courts since a controversial 2018 law by the nationalist government made it a civil crime to make false accusations about Poland’s history in the Holocaust.
Jewish organizations and historians have warned that the outcome, expected on February 9, could be far-reaching – affecting the fate of Holocaust research in the country and a “huge threat to freedom of expression.”
The case, against historians Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, is based on a single paragraph published in the 1,600-page collection, in two volumes, which they co-edited, entitled “Endless Night: The Fate of the Jews in Certain Occupied Polish Countries. An English translation of the book will be published by Indiana University in April.
At the heart of the case is now the late Edward Malinowski, the elder of the village of Malinowo, who in World War II allegedly robbed and rescued a Jew, Esther Siemiatycka, finding work as a forced laborer. If the Nazi authorities knew she was Jewish, she would have been executed.
Siemiatycka, who is also deceased, testified in Malinowski’s defense in a 1950 trial for alleged collaboration with the Nazi occupiers of Poland and was acquitted.
In the disputed paragraph, historians based their claims on a 1996 interview by Siemiatycka of the USC Shoah Foundation, which collected oral histories from the Holocaust. Relating this testimony, the paragraph said that Siemiatycka “accomplished this [Malinowski] he was complicit in the deaths of dozens of Jews who had hidden in the woods and been handed over to the Germans. ” The paragraph also said that her testimony from 1950 was “false.”
“After the war, he [Malinowski] he would have received the death penalty, “Siemiatycka said in 1996.” I saved him, even though he hurt me a lot. “
“I found this source the most reliable for reconstructing the story of Esther Siemiatycka,” Engelking told ABC News.
Engelking told ABC News that he believes Siemiatycka has a “temporal and emotional” realization, and the book suggests that she testified in support of Malinowski because she was grateful to him for saving her life, and wanted to repay her. well, in spite of all the evil she had suffered from him. “
Filomena Leszczyńska, Malinowski’s surviving niece, 81, with the help of the Polish League for the Fight against Defamation (RDI) – a government-backed organization whose goal is to “clarify false information” about Poland’s past – said that paragraph In the book, he violated his personal rights by defaming “a Polish hero who hid Jews during World War II.” CDI claimed in court that Engelking confused the village elder with another Malinowo resident of the same name when referring to the trade relations between the couple and therefore the basis of their research was wrong.
“The paragraph does contain an error, namely the attribution of transactions with Esther to [elder] sołtys Malinowski, but this does not in any way violate the personal rights of Edward Malinowski or his niece, “Engelking said.” In the field of research, such errors are reported at most in subsequent reviews or publications, and if the book has another addition, the change is made. “
Leszczyńska took the case to the district court in Warsaw in June 2019, after learning about the accusation on the radio, said Engelking, founder and director of the Polish Holocaust Research Center. Leszczyńska sued historians for 100,000 zlotys ($ 27,000) and apologized to several major newspapers last year.
On the surface, civil litigation at the heart of this story involves an old woman who wants to defend the good name of her family, allegedly tainted by the authors of a book “Endless Night,” Grabowski told ABC News. “In reality, however, the process was prepared, launched and funded by a right-wing, nationalist militant organization, funded directly by the Polish state and serving as a proxy for the Polish authorities,” he added, referring to the CDI.
Grabowski, a professor of history at the University of Ottawa, also condemned the extent of the claims in this case.
“If the process is successful, the alleged attack on ‘national pride’ or ‘national identity’ can trigger a lawsuit from anyone who believes that ‘its national identity’ is threatened by a scholar,” Grabowski said. “This, in practical terms, would put independent Polish Holocaust researchers in an impossible position. Which is exactly the goal the authorities want to achieve.”
Maciej Swirski, the head of RDI, told ABC news that the organization does not use government funds in this case and instead relies on crowdfunding. He said the case had “nothing to do with preventing scientific research”.
“The intent of this private trial is to protect the memory of Mrs. Leszczyńska’s ancestor – the late Edward Malinowski, a hero who saved Jews during the war,” he told ABC News.
Historians and various Jewish societies in Europe say the case has potential implications.
Proceedings of this type aim above all to undermine the credibility and competence of the defendants to burden them financially, with high penalties and legal costs, and to cause a “freezing effect”, ie – in this case – to discourage other researchers from investigating and writing the truth about the extermination of Jews in Poland, ”said Engelking.
The country has long struggled to cope with its war history. In 1939, 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland, but by the end of the war, 90 percent had died, with the remaining 300,000 survivors living mostly in the Soviet Union, according to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
This is not the first time that Poland’s role in the Holocaust has been called into question in recent years. A diplomatic spit ensued with Israel over the adoption of the controversial 2018 law, which initially made it a crime to make false accusations about Poland’s history in the Holocaust. The law was later amended to make it just a civil crime.
The current trial sparked a tense exchange of letters this month between Polish Ambassador to Israel Marek Magierowski and the Center for Holocaust Survivors in Israel. Magierowski wrote that the trial is a “civil case” and would be a “malignant interpretation” to consider the trial “an attack on the freedom of research.” The Polish Foreign Ministry did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
There is more at stake in the process than freedom of inquiry, but control over national identity, critics of the court’s case say.
The story of complicity and protection, at the heart of Malinowski’s story, encompasses the country’s broader struggles over Poland’s role in the Holocaust, according to Gabriele Lesser, a journalist and historian specializing in the occupation of Poland.
“As Barbara Engelking pointed out – with specific sources supporting her – that the same person can save Jews and denounce Jews,” she told ABC News. “This complexity is part of the reality of Judeo-Polish relations during the war … The nationalist camp that” defends national pride “does not want to see this complexity. Judges are now in a situation where they have to rule on research that goes beyond their required area of expertise. ”
Mark Wiesenthal, director of government affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based anti-Semitism NGO, said the lawsuits were an “attempt to use the legal system to clog and intimidate Holocaust scholarships.” in Poland. “And the Shoah Foundation in Paris said the case was a” dangerous attack at the center of research. “
“Let’s be honest: 100,000 Polish zlotys ($ 27,000) is a lot of money in Poland,” Zygmunt Stępiński, director of the POLIN Museum, told ABC News. “A Holocaust researcher will think twice before researching and publishing his results in Poland. The new strategy is a form of censorship and intimidation of researchers before publishing their work, fearing persecution and accusing them of legal defense costs. ”
A verdict in the trial will be issued on February 9.