Remembering the Holocaust and the Impact on Societies Today

Simon Bell

• Publisher: Pen and Sword History
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781399012102
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

The Holocaust is the most researched and written about genocide in history. Known facts should be beyond dispute. Yet Holocaust memory is often formed and dictated by governments and others with an agenda to fulfil, or by deniers who seek to rewrite the past due to vested interests and avowed prejudices. Legislation can be used to prosecute hate crime and genocide denial, but it has also been created to protect the reputation of nation states and the inhabitants of countries previously occupied and oppressed by the regime of Nazi Germany. The crimes of the Holocaust are, of course, rightly seen mainly as the work of the Nazi regime, but there is a reality that some citizens of subjugated lands participated in, colluded and collaborated with those crimes, and on occasion committed crimes and atrocities against Jews independently of the Nazis. Others facilitated and enabled the Nazis by allowing industries to work with the Germans; some showed hostility, indifference and reluctance to assist Jewish refugees, or, due to antipathy, apathy, greed, self-interest or out-and-out anti-Semitism they allowed or even encouraged barbaric and cruel crimes to take place. Survivors of the Holocaust often express a primary desire that lessons of the past must be learned in order to reduce the risk of similar crimes reoccurring. Yet anti-Semitism is still a toxin in the modern world, and racism and hostility to other communities – including those who suffer in or have fled war and oppression – can at times appear normalised and socially acceptable. This book seeks to explore aspects of the Holocaust as it is remembered and reflect ultimately on parallels with the world we live in today.

Chapter 1

Legislation: The Polish Holocaust Law

The controversy over the flawed, false and wholly inaccurate description of Auschwitz and other camps as ‘Polish death camps’ has existed for a long time. It came to a head somewhat in May 2012 following a speech at the White House in Washington by President Obama. In a ceremony during which the president was posthumously awarding the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, he referred to Karski as having

served as a courier for the Polish resistance during the darkest days of World War II. Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself. Jan took that information to President Franklin Roosevelt, giving one of the first accounts of the Holocaust and imploring to the world to take action.1

Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, referred to this as being indicative of ignorance and incompetence.2 There was condemnation from Poles who insisted that Obama should have referred to a ‘German death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland’.3 The White House quickly tried to repair the damage of any offence caused, with Tommy Vietor, the National Security Council spokesman, stating that Obama had ‘misspoke’ and that he was actually referring to Nazi death camps in Poland.4 The White House claim that Obama had mistakenly used the phrase that caused offence seems plausible, but the reaction is an indicator of Polish sensitivity around this subject.

Of course, Polish sensitivity predates the speech by President Obama. Writing a postscript to a conference held at Princeton University in 2010, Benjamin Frommer described a letter that was read on behalf of the consul general, Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka. The letter, and the theme it introduced, was scathing of any suggestion of Polish culpability during the Holocaust.5

On 6 February 2018, Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, signed what has been referred to as the Holocaust bill into law. The law introduced the potential for courts to issue fines or up to three years’ imprisonment for those who describe Nazi camps in Poland as ‘Polish death camps’ or for suggesting ‘against the facts’ that the nation or state of Poland was complicit in the genocide committed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The Polish government asserted that the law was necessary to protect the reputation of the people and state of Poland as victims of the Nazis.6 The deputy prime minister of Poland, Beata Szyldo, defended the bill by stating: ‘We, the Poles, were victims, as were the Jews. It is the duty of every Pole to defend the good name of Poland.’7 The ruling Law and Justice Party government appears to have introduced the law as part of a series of attempts to assert legal control over the media.8

Article 55 a. 1 of the law states:

Whoever publicly and against the facts ascribes to the Polish Nation, or to the Polish State, the responsibility or complicity for Nazi crimes committed by the III German Reich as defined by article 6 of the International Military Tribunal attached to the international agreement concerning the prosecution and the punishment of the leading war criminals of the Axis powers, signed in London on August 8, 1945, or other crimes that constitute crimes against peace, humanity, or war crimes, or [whoever] otherwise greatly diminishes the responsibility of the real perpetrators of these crimes, shall be subject to fine or three years of imprisonment. The sentence shall be made public. It will be, of course, the police and the prosecutors who will, henceforth, establish the facts and what can be said and written.9

The reference to ‘publicly and against the facts ascribes to the Polish nation’ is the key point of the law that part of this book is concerned about. Whilst, in legal terms, the Polish state autonomy ceased during the years of occupation, with the government in exile and the military decimated, Poland, as a self-defining entity of nationhood and as a land inhabited by those who considered themselves to be Poles, continued to exist. Some of those Poles, whether coerced, forced, threatened, induced, or acting independently, were involved in the crimes of the Holocaust. Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro opined that the law was a means of defending the good name of Poland wherever an act of slander or falsification occurred. Furthermore, he suggested that this applied to the generations of Poles who had suffered most at the hands of the Nazi Germans who were ‘accused of complicity, and sometimes – however incredible it may sound – even of agency in the perpetration of the Holocaust, which was committed on the occupied soil of Poland by the Germans’.10

It is accepted that the population of Poland suffered greatly under German occupation. It is further accepted that many Poles assisted Jews, and that Poland has more people recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among Nations than any other country, with 6,863 individuals cited out of the 26,973 honoured up to 1 January 2018.11 However, there were Poles who assisted the German occupiers in a range of ways, and who committed acts that directly led to harm and death of oppressed Jews. This will be addressed further, but it is of importance that the law as introduced by the Polish government may seek to exculpate en masse all Poles, rather than accepting as historical fact that some Poles were responsible for criminality linked to the Holocaust. It is also worth noting the observation by Jan Grabowski that some in Polish society may actually trade on the ‘righteous’ label bestowed on so many, and that being seen as a nation of sacrifice and compassion during a time of suffering has national and international benefits. Based on the evidence that Poles were involved in crimes against the Jews, this may be seen as what Grabowski describes as ‘a pernicious historical fallacy’.12

The international response to the Holocaust Law was notable for the collective condemnation of the proposal and for the wide range of voices offering opinions. Somewhat surprising was the tone used by some in seeking to defend the law. As The Times of Israel reported on 21 March 2018, some of Poland’s more conservative lawmakers accused American and Israeli Jews of using objections to the law as a pretext for getting money off the Polish state for Jewish property that had been seized during the era of communist rule.13 Jerzy Czerwinski, a Polish senator, said on state radio on 19 March 2018 that he saw the opposition to the law as having a ‘hidden agenda’ and suggested that ‘we know that Jewish circles, including American, but mostly the state of Israel, are trying to get restitution of property or at least compensation’.14

Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican in the United States Senate, who is also on the board of directors of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum issued a statement via a press release on 19 February 2018, in which he said:

As a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and a strong supporter of Israel, I urge President Duda and Prime Minister Morawiecki to reject this terrible affront to the Jewish people. This bill, which was drafted as the world commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, would be severely detrimental to those in Poland who want to learn from the dark lessons of the past and work towards a brighter future.15

Yad Vashem issued a number of statements on the issue. On 27 January 2018, a press release stated that Yad Vashem opposed the legislation which if felt would potentially blur the historical truth of assistance the Germans received from Poles during the Holocaust.16 The statement accepted that the term ‘Polish death camps’ was a misrepresentation, but asserted that restrictions on statements by scholars regarding any Polish complicity are a serious distortion.17 On 1 February 2018, Yad Vashem offered a response to the law after it was passed the previous day by the Polish Senate. The statement reiterated the opinion that the law would blur historical truths due to the limitations it placed on suggestions that there was any complicity by segments of the Polish population in crimes against Jews during the Holocaust.18 It further added that the correct way to combat the use of the term ‘Polish death camps’ was by educational activities rather than criminalizing such statements.19 Additionally, it was suggested that the law passed by the Polish Senate could potentially jeopardize open discussion about any role the Polish people played in the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust.20 On 6 February 2018, President Duda ratified the law, which drew a further response from Yad Vashem. The statement issued by Yad Vashem on that day warned once again that the wording of the law was likely to result in history being distorted because of the limitations it would place on public expressions about the collaboration of some parts of the Polish population.21 Concern was expressed that the law would jeopardize free and open discussion about the role of Poles in the murder and persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and that there could be implications in the areas of Holocaust research, remembrance and education.22

Criticism of the law came from other notable Holocaust education and remembrance organizations, suggesting a general consensus of opinion. Karen Pollock, on behalf of the Holocaust Educational Trust in the United Kingdom, issued a statement accepting the importance of accurate language when discussing the Holocaust, but noted that the law ‘has the potential to inhibit objective research, discussion and education about the history of the Holocaust and could open the door to revisionism and denial’.23 The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) suggested that ‘the law would chill a free and open dialogue addressing Poland’s history during the Holocaust, including in Polish schools and universities as well as the media’.24 The USHMM acknowledged that many Poles had helped and saved Jews but stated that some Poles were complicit in crimes against Jews, including identifying, denouncing, hunting down, blackmailing and plundering Jewish property.25 Furthermore, as will be addressed later, in July 1941, Poles in Jedwabne participated in the murder of hundreds of their Jewish neighbours.26

Stephen Smith of the USC Shoah Foundation was equally vociferous in his observations. He suggested that the new law showed weakness and insecurity, adding that facing historical facts did not need to come at the expense of national pride.27 Furthermore, he observed that the reputation of Germany had been enhanced by taking responsibility for crimes during the Holocaust and that Poland would do well to follow its example.28

In a similar vein, the Wiener Library in London accepted Polish objections to the phrase ‘Polish death camps’, but noted that ‘the historical evidence that some Polish people committed or were complicit in large scale robbery, violence and murder of Jewish men, women and children is incontestable. The work of reputable scholars leaves us in no doubt about this. Any law that discourages the scholarly investigation of historical events is a bad law’.29

In a further criticism offere...