Jan Grabowski (historian)
Prof. Jan Zbigniew Grabowski (born June 24, 1962) is a Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa.[1] Grabowski holds a PhD from Université de Montréal and an MA from the University of Warsaw.[1] He specializes in the Holocaust in Poland,[1] especially the topic of Polish collaboration with Nazi occupiers,[1] for which he has faced harassment from Polish nationalists.[2] As of June 2025, he has an h-index of 17 and an i10-index of 28.[3]
Life
Grabowski was born in Warsaw, Poland to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. Grabowski's father was a Holocaust survivor from Kraków who fought in the Warsaw Uprising.[4] While at the University of Warsaw, Grabowski joined anti-communist activities. After receiving his MA in 1986, he emigrated to Canada.[4] Grabowski has been a professor at the University of Ottawa since 1993.[4]
Awards
- Yad Vashem Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung senior research scholar award (2005)[5]
- Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research (2014)[6]
- Arie van Mansum Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education (2019)[5]
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2020)[5]
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's Insight Award (2022)[7]
Incidents
Libel lawsuit
In February 2021, Profs. Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking were sued in a Polish court over a book about the role of Catholic Poles in the Holocaust.[8] In August 2021, the Warsaw Court of Appeal dismissed the lawsuit against them.[9]
Research on Holocaust distortion on English Wikipedia
In February 2023, Profs. Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein published a 57-page article,[10] reporting the widespread distortion of Holocaust history on English Wikipedia,[10][11] which involved the exaggeration of Jewish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers,[10][11] invention of Jewish "atrocities" against Poles,[10][11] downplaying of Polish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers and blaming Jews for their own suffering:[10][11]
Four distortions dominate Wikipedia’s coverage of Polish–Jewish wartime history: a false equivalence narrative suggesting that Poles and Jews suffered equally in World War II; a false innocence narrative, arguing that Polish antisemitism was marginal, while the Poles’ role in saving Jews was monumental; antisemitic tropes insinuating that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo–Bolshevism), that money-hungry Jews controlled or still control Poland, and that Jews bear responsibility for their own persecution.
Grabowski and Klein also criticized English Wikipedia's administrators and the Wikimedia Foundation's lack of will to handle,[10][11] leaving the site vulnerable to disinformation:
Wikipedia's administrators have largely failed to uphold Wikipedia's policies [. ...] unable to deal with the issue of persistent distortion [...] Wikipedia’s articles [...] have become a hub of misinformation and antisemitic canards.
On another occasion, Prof. Grabowski said,
As a historian, I was aware [...] of various distortions [...] of the Holocaust on Wikipedia. What I found shocking, was the sheer scale [...] and the small number of individuals needed to distort the history of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity.
Some misconceptions about the Holocaust in Poland are summarized as follows:[10]
| Type | Summary |
|---|---|
| Death toll | Myth 1: "3 million non-Jewish Poles were killed in WWII."[10][12] Fact: The number was claimed in 1946 by Jakub Berman, the head of the Polish communist secret police, to create a false equivalence between Jewish and Polish victimhood.[10][13] The death toll of non-Jewish Poles was 1.8 million according to the most recent estimates.[10][14] |
| Scale of helping Jews | Myth 2: "Thousands of Poles were executed for helping Jews."[10][12] Fact: 800 Poles were executed for helping Jews according to the most recent estimates.[15][16] |
| Scale of hiding Jews | Myth 3: "450,000 Poles hid Jews in their houses during the Holocaust."[10][17] Fact: The number was promoted by Władysław Żarski-Zajdler, a writer propagandizing for the Polish communist regime during the 1968 antisemitic campaign.[10][18] Fewer than 30,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust.[10][19] |
| Scale of Polish collaboration | Myth 4: "<1% Poles collaborated with Nazi occupiers."[10][20] Fact: Several independent research showed otherwise.[10][21] |
| Polish Blue Police | Myth 5: "Many Polish Blue Police were executed for refusing to follow Nazi orders to arrest Jews."[10][22] Fact: Proven cases have not been found by mainstream historians yet.[22] Instead, the Polish Blue Police helped Nazi occupiers kill Jews enthusiastically.[23] |
| Polish Underground State | Myth 6: "The Polish Underground State's court investigated 17,000 suspected Polish collaborators and sentenced 3,500 to death."[10] Fact: No more than seven collaborators were sentenced to death by the Polish Underground State's court,[24] despite desperate requests from the Committee to Aid Jews (Żegota).[24] |
| Policies against helping Jews | Myth 7: "Poles were specifically targeted by the Nazis for helping Jews.[10][12] The Nazis imposed death penalty on Poles because of this."[10][12] Fact: Nazi laws against helping Jews were applied equally to millions of non-German subjects under Nazi occupation.[25] The death penalty was introduced on October 15, 1941,[25] long before any obvious help could have been noticed.[25] |
| Revelation of the Holocaust | Myth 8: "Polish Army officer Witold Pilecki told the Allies about the Holocaust via Polish government-in-exile courier Jan Karski."[10][12] Fact: Jan Karski did not tell the Allies about the Holocaust.[26] Karski left Poland in fall 1942,[26] while Pilecki did not write a report about the Holocaust until summer 1943,[26] when most Polish Jews had already been killed.[26] Pilecki could not have given Karski a report that did not exist when Karski left.[26] |
| Nazi reprisals against Poles helping Jews | Myth 9: "The Nazi murdered 20,000 Polish villagers in Białka over some of them helping Jews."[10][27] Fact: It is true that individual shootings of Białka's Polish villagers happened, but the confirmed death toll was 96.[10][28] |
| Post-war pogroms against Jews | Myth 10: "The July 1946 Kielce pogrom was planned by the Soviet occupiers."[10] Fact: The claim has been roundly rejected by mainstream scholars, including Joanna Tokarska-Bakir who won the 2019 Yad Vashem International Book Award for a book that disproved the claim,[29] which is only held by some Polish nationalists and conspiracy theorists.[10] |
Physical assault
On 30 May 2023, Grabowski gave a seminar on Poland's history of antisemitism in Warsaw. Grzegorz Braun, a far-right MP, smashed Grabowski's microphone and forced the seminar to be cancelled.[30] During the 2023 Hanukkah, the same MP put out a menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament,[31] who was expelled by the parliament and charged with hate crimes.[31] Braun's behavior caused a global uproar.[32] Despite Braun's actions, he was elected to the European Parliament in June 2024.[33]
Selected works
Books
2020s
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2010s
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2000s
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Articles
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Related pages
Footnotes
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Dr. Jan Grabowski". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- ↑
- "U of O Holocaust scholar says he's a target of Polish 'hate' campaign". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. February 17, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- "Holocaust historian receives death threats - Arutz Sheva". Israel National News. June 20, 2017. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- "The Wikipedia fight over Poland's role in the Holocaust sparks death threats against an Ottawa professor". The Canadian Jewish News. April 17, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- "Holocaust writer Grabowski faces Polish fury". The Jewish Chronicle. December 27, 2024. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- ↑ "Jan Grabowski". Google Scholar. Retrieved June 17, 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "'Orgy of Murder': The Poles Who 'Hunted' Jews and Turned Them Over to the Nazis". Haaretz. February 11, 2017. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
More than 200,000 Jews were killed, directly or indirectly, by Poles in World War II, says historian Jan Grabowski, who studied the brutal persecution of the victims. His conclusion: There were no bystanders in the Holocaust.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Jan Grabowski - Member Profile - University of Ottawa". University of Ottawa. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- ↑ "Professor Jan Grabowski wins the 2014 Yad Vashem International Book Prize". Yad Vashem. December 4, 2014. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- ↑ "2022 Impact Awards—Insight Award winner: Jan Grabowski". Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – Government of Canada. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- ↑
- "Important Statement from Museum President and CEO and Board Chair". Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
Dr. Jan Grabowski, a distinguished Holocaust historian, has been an outspoken critic of Poland's distortion of history, facing harassment and even death threats over his scholarly research.
- "Polish court ruling on Holocaust libel is 'very disturbing,' historians say". Jewish Insider. February 10, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
The ruling against academics Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski is the first under Poland's new 2018 libel law
- "Statement on Court Case Against Professor Jan Grabowski - 10.02.2021". University of Ottawa. February 10, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- "Important Statement from Museum President and CEO and Board Chair". Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- ↑
- "Polish appeals court dismisses claims against Holocaust book historians". Reuters. August 16, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- "Polish appeals court dismisses claims against Holocaust book historians". Euractiv. August 17, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
An appeals court ruled that two historians accused of tarnishing the memory of a Polish villager in a book about the Holocaust need not apologise, overturning a lower court ruling that raised fears about freedom of academic research.
- "Polish Holocaust researchers accused of defamation will give Cleveringa Lecture". Universiteit Leiden. October 12, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025.
- ↑ 10.00 10.01 10.02 10.03 10.04 10.05 10.06 10.07 10.08 10.09 10.10 10.11 10.12 10.13 10.14 10.15 10.16 10.17 10.18 10.19 10.20 10.21 10.22 10.23 10.24 Grabowski, Jan; Klein, Shira (February 9, 2023). "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust". The Journal of Holocaust Research. 37 (2): 133–190. doi:10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
Four distortions dominate Wikipedia's coverage of Polish–Jewish wartime history: a false equivalence narrative suggesting that Poles and Jews suffered equally in World War II; a false innocence narrative, arguing that Polish antisemitism was marginal, while the Poles' role in saving Jews was monumental; antisemitic tropes insinuating that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo–Bolshevism), that money-hungry Jews controlled or still control Poland, and that Jews bear responsibility for their own persecution.
[...]
The Polish government's resolve to control the past culminated with [...] the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance [...] penalizes those who 'slander the good name of the Polish nation' and who 'blame the Polish society for crimes committed by the Nazi Third Reich.' - ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4
- Klein, Shira (June 14, 2023). "The shocking truth about Wikipedia's Holocaust disinformation". The Forward. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
Why Wikipedia cannot be trusted: It repeatedly allows rogue editors to rewrite Holocaust history and make Jews out to be the bad guys [...].
- "Wikipedia and Judaism: How Holocaust Denial Became Embedded in the World's Go-To Source of (Mis)Information". World Religion News. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
- Klein, Shira (June 14, 2023). "The shocking truth about Wikipedia's Holocaust disinformation". The Forward. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Wikipedia article, “Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust,” Wikipedia, revision from 8:06, May 24, 2022,
- ↑ Karyn Ball and Per Anders Rudling, “The Underbelly of Canadian Multiculturalism: Holocaust Obfuscation and Envy in the Debate about the Canadian Museum for Human Rights,” Holocaust Studies, vol. 20, no. 3 (2014): pp. 33–80.
- ↑ C. Łuczak, “Szanse i trudności bilansu demograficznego Polski w latach 1939–1945,” Dzieje Najnowsze 2 (1994): pp. 9–15.
- ↑ Ryszard Walczak et al. (eds.), Those Who Helped: Polish Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (Warszawa: IPN, 1997).
- ↑ Martyna Grądzka-Rejak and Aleksandra Namysło, (eds.), Represje za pomoc Żydom na okupowanych ziemiach polskich w czasie II wojny światowej, vol. 1 (Warsaw: IPN, 2019), p. 464.
- ↑ Richard C. Lukas, Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989), p. 15.
- ↑
- "The Stalinist roots of "left" anti-semitism". Workers' Liberty. 28 April 2011. Archived from the original on February 7, 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
In the 1970s the rulers of the USSR launched a sustained 'anti-Zionist' campaign, in fact anti-semitic [...] much of what many British and international leftists [...] say about Israel is an indirect and unwitting copy of the Stalinists' efforts at constructing a Marxist-sounding gloss on old anti-semitic themes [...] an anti-semitic show-trial was due to be staged, in which five Jewish doctors from the Kremlin's own hospital were to face charges of poisoning and plotting.
- Gansinger, Simon (September 2016). "Communists Against Jews: the Anti-Zionist Campaign in Poland in 1968". Fathom Journal. Archived from the original on January 30, 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
- Bash, Dana; Sharpe, Abbie (May 1, 2022). "In 1968, Poland's communist government forced Jews to leave. Today, the country embraces refugees". CNN. Archived from the original on October 5, 2024. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
But Poland's tiny Jewish population diminished even further in 1968, when the communist government forced thousands to leave the country in an anti-Semitic purge [...] Scapegoating the Jews was a tried-and-true tactic used by leaders for millennia, and it worked just as the communists [...] After Israel's victory over its Arab neighbors in 1967's Six-Day War, Poland's communist party leader Władysław Gomułka spoke out against a "fifth column" of Polish Jews, in what became known as the "Zionist" speech – evoking a wave of anti-Semitism...some 13,000 Polish Jews who were given a one-way ticket out of his country.
- "The Stalinist roots of "left" anti-semitism". Workers' Liberty. 28 April 2011. Archived from the original on February 7, 2025. Retrieved 6 October 2024.
- ↑ Natalia Sawka, “Antysemita Leszek Żebrowski poprowadzi wykład o ‘żołnierzach wyklętych,’” Gazeta Wyborcza, March 1, 2016
- ↑ The “Israeli War Crimes Commission” statistics seem to originate from an essay from the 1960s by one Leo Heiman, which provides no footnote. Leo Heiman, “Ukrainians and the Jews,” in Ukrainians and Jews, Articles, Testimonies, Letters and Official Documents Dealing with Interrelations of Ukrainians and Jews in the Past and Present: A Symposium (New York: The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, 1966), p. 60.
- ↑ Machcewicz and Persak, (eds.), Wokół Jedwabnego; Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, (eds.), Dalej jest noc: losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski (Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland), 2 vols. (Warsaw: Polish Center for Holocaust Research, 2018).
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 Engelking and Grabowski, (eds.), Dalej jest noc; Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, “Polnische Bürgermeister und der Holocaust im Generalgouvernement Besatzung, Kollaboration und Handlungsmöglichkeiten,” Bulletin des Fritz Bauer Instituts, (2021), pp. 26–35.
- ↑ 23.0 23.1
- "Polish police murdered Jews during the Holocaust with gusto and even without Nazi orders, new book claims". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. December 10, 2024. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
Jan Grabowski spent more than 10 years conducting his research, including going through Polish archives, private diaries and records from more than 100 small towns where Jews lived in high concentrations.
- "Polish police took initiative in Jewish killings, new book explores". The Jerusalem Post. December 10, 2024. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
Polish police murdered Jews during the Holocaust with gusto and even without Nazi orders, according to new resesarch.
- Grabowski, Jan (2024). "Whitewash: Poland and the Jews". The Jewish Quarterly. London, United Kingdom. Retrieved May 25, 2025.
In this ground-breaking essay, Jan Grabowski, a world-renowned Holocaust historian, examines how the government, museums, schools and state institutions became complicit in delivering a message of Polish national innocence during the Holocaust. He recounts his own experience as the victim of smears and a notorious lawsuit for questioning the complicity of Poles in the destruction of the country's Jews, and examines the far-reaching consequences of Poland's historical distortions, which have been repeated and replicated worldwide to challenge the truth of the Holocaust.
- "Polish police murdered Jews during the Holocaust with gusto and even without Nazi orders, new book claims". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. December 10, 2024. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Andrzej Żbikowski, Polacy i Zydzi pod okupacja niemiecką, 1939-1945: Studia i Materiały (Warsaw: IPN, 2006), pp. 482–84.
- ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 The Third Decree of General Governor Hans Frank concerning restrictions on residency in the Generalgouvernement and introducing the death penalty for aid rendered to Jews, October 15, 1941; Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement. Dziennik Rozporządzeń dla Generalnego Gubernatorstwa, Cracow, October 25, 1941, p. 595.
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 26.4 Adam Puławski, “Revisiting Jan Karski’s Final Mission,” Israeli Journal of Foreign Affairs, vol. 15, no. 2 (2021): pp. 289–97; Adam Puławski, Wobec niespotykanego w dziejach mordu. Rząd RP na uchodźstwie, Delegatura Rządu RP na Kraj, AK a eksterminacja ludności żydowskiej od wielkiej akcji do powstania w getcie warszawskim (Chełm: Stowarzyszenie Rocznik Chełmski, 2018).
- ↑ Wikipedia article, “Nazi Crimes Against the Polish Nation,” Wikipedia, revision from 14:14, June 15, 2022,
- ↑ Geoffrey P. Megargee, ed., Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, vol. 1: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA) (Washington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009), p. 692.
- ↑ "Omer Bartov and Joanna Tokarska-Bakir Were Awarded with the 2019 Yad Vashem International Book Prize". Yad Vashem. December 8, 2019. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
- ↑ Lepiarz, Jacek (June 1, 2023). "Polish radical right-wing MP disrupts lecture on Holocaust". DW News. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 Wright, George (18 January 2024). "Grzegorz Braun: Polish MP who doused Hanukkah candles loses immunity". BBC News. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
- ↑
- "Far-right Polish MP Just Took a Fire Extinguisher to a Menorah in Parliament". VICE. December 12, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Watch: Far-Right MP uses fire extinguisher to snuff out Hanukkah candles". The Telegraph. December 12, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Grzegorz Braun expelled from Polish parliament after furious reaction from politicians
- Kika, Thomas (December 13, 2023). "Polish MP Rails Against 'Satanic' Jews After Extinguishing Menorah". Newsweek. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Far-right Polish MP charged after extinguishing parliament's Hanukkah candles". The Times of Israel. April 9, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑
- "Polish MP who doused menorah wins higher office". Israel Hayom. June 10, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Grzegorz Braun gained notoriety last December for extinguishing a Hanukkah menorah in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher, labeling Judaism as a "cult of the Talmud and Satan."
- "Polish MP who doused menorah in antisemitic attack elected to European Parliament". Jewish News Syndicate. June 10, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Polish 'bad boys' to join new EU house". Euractiv. June 11, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Polish MP who doused menorah wins higher office". Israel Hayom. June 10, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑ Grabowski, Jan (2024). "On Duty - The Polish Blue & Criminal Police in the Holocaust". Yad Vashem Online Store. Retrieved January 5, 2025.
- ↑ Grabowski, Jan; Engelking, Barbara; Skibińska, Alina; Szurek, Jean-Charles; Zapalec, Anna; Panz, Karolina; Frydel, Tomasz; Swałtek-Niewińska, Dagmara (2022). "Night without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland". Combined Academic Publishers. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253062864. Retrieved January 5, 2025.
Series: Studies in Antisemitism. 546 pages, 152.00 x 229.00 mm, 73 b&w photos, 8 maps, 1 chart, 35 b&w tables.
- ↑ Grabowski, Jan (2013). "Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland". Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253010742. Retrieved January 5, 2025.
- ↑ Grabowski, Jan (2008). "Rescue for Money: Paid Helpers in Poland, 1939-1945". AbeBooks. ISBN 9783835304758. Retrieved January 5, 2025.