Historians defend scholar who studies Poland and Holocaust

Dozens of international historians have come to the defense of a Holocaust scholar who is accused of slandering Poland’s reputation with research that focuses on the participation of some Poles in the killing of Jews during World War II.

The Polish League Against Defamation says that Jan Grabowski’s scholarship “falsifies the history of Poland, proclaiming the thesis that Poles are complicit in the extermination of Jews.” The group made its claim in a public statement earlier this month signed by dozens of Polish academics.

Since then Grabowski, who is based at the University of Ottawa in Canada, has received several death threats, leading to security patrols in his department. The son of a Holocaust survivor, Grabowski describes the campaign against him as a “very brutal, vicious, and personal attack.”

Dozens of international historians of modern European history came to his defense with an open statement Monday in which they also described the campaign against him an “attack” and defended his scholarship, which they say “holds to the highest standards of academic research.”

They said the Polish group is putting forth a “distorted and whitewashed version of the history of Poland during the Holocaust era.” ...