Polish law on Holocaust is a denial of the truth
In the early 2000s, when I worked with Canadian Jewish Congress, I wrote an article about my father’s family all of whom were murdered in the gas chambers of Treblinka during the Holocaust. At the time I referred to Treblinka as a “Polish death camp.”
I was wrong and the Canadian Polish Congress wasted no time sending me a letter quite correctly informing me that Treblinka was, in fact, a Nazi death camp situated in German-occupied Poland.
It was an attempt to ensure that history did not blame Poland for the gassings of millions of Jews and a foray into protecting the good name of Poland and its people.
This campaign of historical correction continued for years culminating last week, with a law passed by the Polish parliament that would impose fines and even a prison term for anyone who claims Poland retains responsibility for the genocide committed by Nazi Germany against six million Jews.
One can understand the need and indeed angst of Poland, perennially seen as Hitler’s willing accomplices in genocide. However in truth, Poland, unlike France or even Norway, had no form of collaborationist bodies that “officially” carried out Nazi brutalities or subjugated its own people.
The law, however, is wrong-headed. It uses a battering ram to eviscerate historical discussion.
In fact, as the Second World War drew to a close, Poland suffered incredible losses. Historical authorities put the number at more than six million. However, amongst those were three million Polish Jews, virtually 50 per cent of all Jews annihilated in the Holocaust.
And yes, it is also true to note that post war, during the Communist era, the mass murder of Jews in Poland and other Soviet bloc countries was never discussed. Polish Jews were simply part of “Soviet citizens” murdered by the fascists.
With Polish independence, much of this changed. Poland did begin to come to grips with the murder of millions of their fellow Polish Jews.
It was a slow process. Poland, to this day, still suffers with a historical anti-Semitism that saw pogroms and other brutalities targeting Jews over many generations.
During the Holocaust there were both Polish heroes and villains when it came to the question of their Jewish citizens.
We know that many Poles were at best ambivalent when it came to the lives of their fellow Jewish neighbours.
Indeed, the Nazis had invoked a law that would see any Poles assisting Jews as punishable by death. Perhaps one can understand the ambivalence. Yet, there was more, much more. Many Polish citizens of the time eagerly informed Nazi authorities of Jews in hiding. A Polish farmer who demanded and did not receive an outrageous sum of money to hide them in his barn handed over my father’s brother and his family to Nazi authorities.
University of Ottawa Professor Jan Grabowski, in a February 2016 letter challenging Polish authorities view on its complicity in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust noted, that Polish Police (PolnischePolizei-PP) “worked hand in hand with the Germans and their Ukrainian auxiliaries” in sending Jews to their deaths.
Granowski explained that in forcibly rounding up the Jews from various ghettos the PP committed “particularly heinous crimes on helpless Jews.”
In fact, according to Granowski, “the number of Jewish victims brutally murdered or delivered to the execution sites by Polish Police in two small areas of Poland number in the hundreds.”
And in a subsequent telephone call with me, he explained that this happened in many areas of Poland during the war.
And yet there is another side. My own father, Max Farber, was saved by his Polish friend, Julian, who hid him on his property despite the Nazi edict of death to Poles who would do so. When my father challenged his friend not wanting to put him or his young family in danger, Julian said to him, “we are friends and brothers, I will protect you come what may.”
While some of its history against their Jewish neighbours is brutal, even unfathomable, this law will betray the heroism of my father’s friend Julian and the thousands of other good Poles recognized by the Jewish Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem as “Righteous Amongst the Nations” for risking their lives to save their Jewish countrymen and women.
Whatever the reason for this law, it must be reconsidered.
Poland’s refusal to tell the entire story of how the Holocaust played out in its own history is simply a denial of truth that should not stand.
Poland, to this day, still suffers with a historical anti-Semitism that saw pogroms and other brutalities targeting Jews over many generations