SecondThe controversial verdict of two prominent Holocaust researchers was overturned in the Polish Court of Appeal. Judge Joanna Wisniewska-Sadomska announced on Monday that Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski had invalidated the defamation charges Said that the court “is not a suitable place for historical debate.”
Engelkin and Grabowski were sued by the village chief’s descendants. In February, they were convicted of defamation in the first instance. The court ordered the two scientists to apologize to the plaintiff.
Engelking and Grabowski published the book “And nochist Nacht”, which records several collusive murders by Catholic Poles Jewish Recorded during the German occupation. In a short article, it is mentioned that the mayor of Malinovo may have participated in the massacre of 22 Jews by German soldiers.
Niece libel suit
Edward Malinowski’s niece filed a defamation lawsuit against the author. Although the court did not impose the required compensation, it asked the researchers to apologize because the offensive paragraph was “inaccurate.”
The appeal judge overturned the decision without considering the accuracy of the article. Instead, she stated that the convictions of the two researchers were “an unacceptable violation of freedom of research and freedom of speech.”
The trial sparked a fierce debate in Poland, discussing the freedom of research related to Polish history and the occupation of Nazi Germany during World War II. Sharp criticism also came from abroad, including the Holocaust Memorial in Israel and academia.
Between 1939 and 1945, 6 million Poles died under German occupation, of which 3 million were Jews.
Poles’ attitudes towards their Jewish neighbors are not uniform. On the one hand, historians describe cases of indifference and sometimes cruelty towards Jews. On the other hand, the Holocaust Memorial has hailed more than 7,000 Poles as “righteous people of the world” because they saved the lives of Jews. No other country in the world is more important than “justice among the people.”
