At its meeting on February 15, 2021, Carleton’s Scholars at Risk Committee voted unanimously to state its strong public support for Professor Jan Grabowski of the University of Ottawa’s Department of History, along with Prof. Barbara Engelking, a Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Their recent book, Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland, ran afoul of a 2019 Polish law making it illegal to “blame the Polish nation for Nazi crimes and exposes those who do to civil lawsuits.” Their book had merely provided a recorded opinion by a witness that the mayor of a particular town had betrayed a group of Jews being hidden by the town. The mayor’s niece filed suit under the terms of the new law and won, and professors Grabowski and Engelking were ordered to apologize for defamation.
The case provides evidence of continuing efforts by the current Polish government and the Polish Anti-Defamation League to threaten research into complicity with the Holocaust in Poland. It sets a dangerous precedent as an attack on academic freedom. Professor Grabowski’s distinguished research on the fate of Jews in Poland during the Holocaust has been widely recognized by the world’s History community and this verdict signals the narrowing of intellectual freedom vital to democratic self-awareness and criticism.