Marek Jan Chodakiewicz

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (born July 15, 1962) is an American historian.[1] He has been described as nationalist by mainstream historians.[2]

Early life

Chodakiewicz was born in Warsaw, Poland.[1] He earned a BSc from San Francisco State University in 1988, an MA from Columbia University in 1990, an MPhil from Columbia University in 1992, and a PhD from Columbia University in 2001.[3]

Controversies

Holocaust revisionism

Chodakiewicz has promoted controversial views about the Holocaust, including:[1]

  • "Many Jews collaborate[d] with Soviet Communists"
  • "Jews [are] more likely to kill Poles after World War II"
  • For these "reasons", the murder of Jewish survivors returning to their homeland[4] was "not antisemitic"[1]

Chodakiewicz also appeared in traditionalist Catholic media, like Radio Maryja, promoting conspiracy theories about Jews.[1] In a 2001 interview by this radio, he accused "Jewish memoirists of bragging about the shooting of hundreds of Poles by "Jewish partisans".[1] Despite Chodakiewicz's record of antisemitic writings, US President George W. Bush made him a member of the oversight board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.[1] He served until 2010.[1]

Reception

Many historians, including Princeton University professor Jan T. Gross[a] and University of Toronto professor Piotr Wróbel[b] criticized Chodakiewicz, saying that Chodakiewicz had written several pieces that trivialized the Holocaust and the violent antisemitism of many Polish Catholics.[1] In his 2003 book After the Holocaust: Polish Jewish Relations in the Wake of World War II, he underestimated the number of Jews that Polish Catholics had killed in post-war pogroms.[4][7] He also accused Holocaust victims of being "Jewish Communists".[1]

Historian Jan Grabowski[c] criticized Chodakiewicz's views as "copious victim blaming".[9] Other historians, including David Engel, Joanna Michlic and Laurence Weinbaum, shared the same opinion as Grabowski.[2][9] In particularly, Weinbaum wrote,[2][9]

“ Chodakiewicz and like-minded historians seem reluctant to forgive the Jews for Jedwabne and the Kielce pogrom, and are hard at work explaining why the murdered—not the murderers—are guilty. ”

referring to the Polish nationalists being upset with the revelation of the Jedwabne pogrom[d].

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Jan T. Gross is an emeritus professor of history at Princeton University.[5]
  2. ↑ Piotr Wróbel is an emeritus professor of history, specialized in Polish history, at University of Toronto.[6]
  3. ↑ A chair professor of history at University of Ottawa who won several awards for his books about the Holocaust in Poland.[8]
  4. ↑ A pogrom started by ethnic Poles in the town of Jedwabne in Nazi-occupied Poland on July 10, 1941, where 40+ Poles killed as many as 1,600 Jews.[10][11]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Keller, Larry (November 29, 2009). "Historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz with Controversial Views Served on Holocaust Museum Board". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2
  3. ↑ Marek Jan Chodakiewicz biography at the Institute of World Politics. Archived 2011-05-22 at the Wayback Machine Washington, DC
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1
  5. ↑ "Jan Tomasz Gross | Department of History". Princeton University. Retrieved May 29, 2025.
  6. ↑ "Piotr Wróbel". University of Toronto | Department of History. Retrieved May 30, 2025.
  7. ↑
    • Polonksy, Antony; Michlic, Joanna B., eds. (2003). "Explanatory notes". The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland. Princeton University Press. p. 469. ISBN 978-0-691-11306-7.
    • Belavusau, Uladzislau (2013). Freedom of Speech: Importing European and US Constitutional Models in Transitional Democracies. Routledge. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-135-07198-1.
    • Smith, S. A., ed. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 206. ISBN 9780191667510. Here anti-communism merged with antisemitism as concepts such as Polish żydokomuna (Jewish Communism) suggest.
    • Stone, Dan (2014). Goodbye to All That?: The Story of Europe Since 1945. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-19-969771-7.
    • Michnik, Adam; Marczyk, Agnieszka (2018). "Introduction: Poland and Antisemitism". In Michnik, Adam; Marczyk, Agnieszka (eds.). Against Anti-Semitism: An Anthology of Twentieth-century Polish Writings. New York: Oxford University Press. p. xvii (xi–2). ISBN 978-0-1-90624514.
    • Krajewski, Stanisław (2000). "Jews, Communism, and the Jewish Communists" (PDF). In Kovács, András (ed.). Jewish Studies at the CEU: Yearbook 1996–1999. Central European University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 October 2018.
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 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 January 20, 2025. Chodakiewicz's 2003 book, After the Holocaust, engaged in copious victim blaming, stating, 'violence against Jews stemmed from a variety of Polish responses to at least three distinct phenomena: the actions of Jewish Communists … ; the deeds of Jewish avengers … ; and the efforts of the bulk of the members of the Jewish community, who attempted to reclaim their property … ' Chodakiewicz's 2004 book, Between Nazis and Soviets, similarly held Jews responsible for Polish animosity toward them, stating that 'Jewish fugitives had alienated much of the majority population by robbing food and necessities to survive,' and that 'between 1942 and 1944, Jewish supply raids and not Polish antisemitism ultimately determined the nature of mutual relations.' This type of writing garnered scathing critiques from experts in the field, including David Engel [...] Joanna Michlic [...] Laurence Weinbaum [... .]
  10. ↑
  11. ↑
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