Holocaust scholars ordered to apologize in Polish libel case

WARSAW, Poland (AP) - A court in Warsaw ruled Tuesday that two prominent Holocaust researchers must apologize to a woman who claimed her deceased uncle had been slandered in a historical work that suggested he helped kill Jews during World War II.

Lawyers for 81-year-old Filomena Leszczynska argued that her uncle was a Polish hero who had saved Jews, and that the scholars had harmed her good name and that of her family.

The District Court in Warsaw did not, however, rule that they should be forced to pay her 100,000 zlotys ($27,000), as her lawyers had demanded.

The case has been closely watched because it is expected to set an important precedent for independent Holocaust research. The ruling can be appealed, however.

At stake in the case was Polish national pride, according to the plaintiffs, and according to the defendants, the future independence of Holocaust research.

Judge Ewa Jonczyk ruled that the scholars, Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski, must make a written apology to Leszczynska for 'œproviding inaccurate information'ť that her late uncle, Edward Malinowski, robbed a Jewish woman during the war and contributed to the death of Jews hiding in a forest in Malinowo in 1943, when Poland was under German occupation. They were also ordered to apologize for 'œviolating his honor.'ť

The judge drew attention to the discrepancies in the testimony, given at different times, by the Jewish woman whose testimony was the basis of the description of Malinowski's bahaviour.

It ordered Engelking and Grabowski to issue a written apology to Leszczynska for having disseminated inaccurate information about her uncle.

Malinowski was acquitted in a communist court in 1950 of being an accomplice to the killing by Germans of 18 Jews in a forest near the village of Malinowo in 1943.

He is mentioned in a brief passage of a 1,600-page historical work, "Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland,'ť which was co-edited by Grabowski and Engelking. They researched and wrote parts of it, along with other researchers.

Leszczynska has been backed by the Polish League Against Defamation, a group that fights harmful and untruthful depictions of Poland.

Grabowski, a Polish-Canadian history professor at the University of Ottawa, and Engelking, founder and director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, are among Poland's most prominent Holocaust researchers.

They view the case as an attempt to discredit their overall findings and discourage other researchers from investigating the truth about Polish involvement in the German mass murder of Jews.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, Monika Brzozowska-Pasieka, denied there was any attempt to stifle research or speech.

'œThe ruling will determine whether the researchers properly examined the sources, made a correct assessment of these sources and applied an appropriate research methodology,'ť Brzozowska-Pasieka said in a statement to The Associated Press ahead of the verdict.

Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany during the war and its population subjected to mass murder and slave labor. While 3 million of the country's 3.3 million Jews were murdered, so were more than 2 million mostly Christian Poles. Poles resisted the Nazis at home and abroad and never collaborated as a state with the Third Reich. Thousands of Poles have been recognized by Yad Vashem in Israel for risking their own lives to save Jews.

Yet amid the more than five years of occupation, there were also some Poles who betrayed Jews to the Germans. The topic was taboo during the communist era and each new revelation of Polish wrongdoing in recent years has sparked a backlash.

The libel case has raised concerns internationally because it comes amid a broader state-backed historical offensive. The government had tried to criminalize falsely blaming the Polish nation for Holocaust crimes in 2018, but the law was withdrawn after sparking a diplomatic dispute with Israeli.

Last week, a journalist, Katarzyna Markusz, was questioned by police on suspicions she slandered the Polish nation, a crime with a penalty of up to three years in prison, with an article that mentioned 'œPolish participation in the Holocaust.'ť

Poland's conservative authorities don't deny that some Poles harmed Jews, but they believe the focus on Polish wrongdoing obscures the fact that most of these killings occurred under German orders and terror.

The Polish League Against Defamation is ideologically aligned with the country's ruling party, and the scholars see that as an indication the case is part of a government-backed effort to promote its historical narrative.

'œNight Without End'ť focuses of the fates of Jews who escaped as the Nazis were 'œliquidating'ť ghettos and sending inhabitants to extermination camps. It documents cases of Jews who tried to hide, with those who survived doing so thanks to the help of Poles. It also presents extensive evidence of individual Poles who collaborated in betraying Jews to the Nazis.

At the center of the case was testimony given in 1996 by a Jewish woman, born Estera Siemiatycka, to the USC Shoah Foundation, a Los Angeles-based group that collects Holocaust-era oral histories. When she spoke, she had changed her name to Maria Wiltgren.

Wiltgren, who is no longer alive, described Malinowski, the elder of the village of Malinowo, as someone who helped her to survive under an assumed 'œAryan" identity by putting her in a group of Poles sent to work in Germany after she had purchased false papers. But she also said he cheated her out of money and possessions. Two of her sons testified that she considered him a 'œbad man.'ť

The book states that Wiltgren "realized that he was an accomplice in the deaths of several dozen Jews who had been hiding in the woods and had been turned over to the Germans, yet she gave false testimony in his defense at his trial after the war.'ť

Engelking, who wrote the chapter, acknowledged one error. In the book she mentioned that when Wiltgren was in Germany during the war, she traded with Malinowski. The book didn't make clear that was a different man with the same name. Engelking argued the mistake had no bearing on the larger question of the village elder's behavior toward Jews.

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Associated Press researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed.