A Polish court on Tuesday ordered two leading Holocaust historians to apologize to the descendant of a village mayor whom they said might have been implicated in a massacre of Jews.
However, Warsaw Judge Ewa Konczyk said that Barbara Engelking, chair of Poland’s International Auschwitz Council, and Jan Grabowski of the University of Ottawa would not need to pay a fine.
The defamation trial has raised questions about the freedom to research Poland’s World War II past and has prompted international outrage, including from Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
Photo: AP
The researchers coedited a book titled Night Without End, which documented several cases of complicity of Catholic Poles in the genocide of Jews during the Nazi German occupation.
“I respect the judge’s decision, but I have trouble accepting it. I hope that our reasons will be taken into account in our appeal,” Grabowski was quoted by Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza daily as saying.
Engelking had said earlier that the case was “very dangerous for freedom of speech.”
The case was brought by the niece of Edward Malinowski, who was mayor of the village of Malinowo in northeast Poland during the war.
The book mentioned that the mayor might have been implicated in the local massacre of 22 Jews by German soldiers.
The judge said that the historians’ claim was “inaccurate,” but rejected the demand for 22,000 euros (US$26,700) in compensation for the niece, Filomena Leszczynska.
The descendant’s legal case was supported by the Anti-Defamation League, a Warsaw-based organization that sets out to defend “Poland’s good name.”
The group is in no way related to the US-based organization of the same name, which fights anti-Semitism.
World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder expressed “dismay” over Tuesday’s verdict in what he described as a “misguided libel case.”
“It is simply unacceptable that historians should be afraid of citing credible testimony of Holocaust survivors,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
Lauder was echoed by Gideon Taylor, president of the Jewish Claims Conference, who said via e-mail that the ruling “damages an open and honest coming to terms with the past.”
Poland’s troubled past continues to be highly politically sensitive.
In 2018, the Polish government adopted a law banning the mention of any responsibility of the Polish nation or state in crimes committed by Nazi Germany on Polish soil.
The law carried a three-year prison sentence, which was later dropped after an international outcry.
Six million Poles, including 3 million Jews, perished between 1939 and 1945 during Nazi occupation.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of