"Judgment in Poland does not limit historical research on the Holocaust" Israel today

After Jewish Holocaust investigators were required to apologize for undisclosed information in the facts they published, the plaintiff said that the court's decision "has nothing to do with any political positions."

• A group of Jews evacuated from the Warsaw ghetto in Poland, 1943

  Photography: 

  AP

The decision made yesterday (Tuesday) in a court in Warsaw, Poland, to oblige two well-known Holocaust investigators to apologize for information not backed up by facts they published regarding the village chief's role in the murder of a Jew in World War II, provoked a wave of international condemnation.

Jewish organizations, including representatives of the Jewish community in Poland, argue that this decision could infringe on the freedom of scientific research on the role of Poles in the Holocaust and intimidate historians.

Since the lawsuit against the two historians, Jan Grabowski of the University of Ottawa in Canada and Barbara Englecking of the Center for Holocaust Studies in Warsaw, was funded by the Polish Anti-Defamation League - a body close to Poland's conservative government - This is in order to prevent damage to Poland's good name.

However, the plaintiff's representative at the trial, attorney Monica Bezowska, clarified in an interview with Israel Today that the ruling would not set a precedent for limiting historical research: "It is not a political or historical ruling, but a decision related to the basic right of every person to preserve "Honorable relatives, if they are accused without any evidence. If historians have made a mistake and been misled, there is a right to sue those who violate rights. The court decision is not related to any political positions or bans on historical research."

The lawsuit against the two historians was filed by Philomena Leszczynska, the niece of Eduard Malinowski, who headed the village of Malinovo during the war.

This is due to information published in the book "An Endless Night", in which the two co-authors wrote, about the fate of Jews in occupied Poland during the war.

The book states that the plaintiff's uncle assisted the Germans in the murder of the village's Jewish residents.

The information is based on the late testimony of Holocaust survivor Esther Drogitska, whom Malinowski saved from the Nazis by giving her forged documents.

At a trial held for Malinowski in 1950 for collaborating with the Nazis, Drogitska testified in his favor and thereby aided his acquittal.

However, from testimony she gave in 1996, she retracted her first testimony and linked him to the extradition of 22 Jews to the Nazis, who were executed.

Leshchinska's niece claimed that this information was incorrect and based on rumors, and demanded that historians apologize and pay her compensation in the amount of about 23,000 euros (about 100,000 shekels).

The judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff, demanding that both historians publish an apology and correct the information in future publications.

However, it did not oblige them to pay compensation and imposed the legal expenses on the state.

Historian Jan Grabowski has announced that he intends to appeal the court ruling.

"In our opinion, the researchers' methodology was incorrect," Bezowska explained.

"The court ruled in our favor and ruled that historical facts must be extremely accurate, especially when accusing someone of murder or complicity in murder. This was a typical civil case, not about Malinowski's role in the war and not about German, Polish and Jewish ties in the war, but about the right to honor. A man who passed away. "

She added that it was a fact that in 1943 Jews were murdered in the village, that Malinowski was obliged by the Germans to participate in the excavation of a grave for the murdered Jews and that he met Drogitska, who asked him to help her escape from the Germans.

According to her, in those years two people named Edward Malinowski lived in the village, and this surname was then quite common.

"She heard that there was a murder of Jews in a forest near the village. As early as 1950, the plaintiff's aunt was charged with crimes related to Edward Malinowski II who lived in the village. I heard the testimony from 1996, and I understood that historians made a false identification based on her words. "Solid evidence. Drogitska's testimony, which was not in the village at the time, is based on rumors. Hence, in the absence of evidence, every person has the right to defend the good name of his relatives and to prosecute those who violate his rights."

"The court's decision makes no reference to the issue of Polish national dignity or Polish national identity, as various bodies claim, it is merely a recognition of the very strong personal right to protect the dignity of dead relatives," she added.

"If someone accuses your relative of complicity in murder without providing evidence, are you allowed to sue him in court or not? If there are no facts and the accusation is made on the basis of rumors or gossip, you are allowed to sue, even when the defendants are academics or historians."

Meanwhile, Polish and Israeli officials have expressed grave concern that the misinterpretation of the Polish court's decision could once again worsen relations between the two countries so that tensions between them, which have existed since the "Polish Holocaust Law" crisis about three years ago, will worsen.