Poland is the place where the Holocaust was perpetrated – where close to 5 out of 6 million Jews were killed. Today, it is the place where a new threat is unfolding: the hijacking of history to transform the nation’s past. In his JQ essay ‘Whitewash’, and in this public talk at London’s RUSI, Grabowski explains modern Poland’s problematic failures to acknowledge Poland’s own role in the Holocaust, not just whitewashing Polish complicity, but also twisting the narrative to suit contemporary Polish political purposes and, in doing so, erasing the specifically Jewish nature of Poland’s Holocaust.

World-renowned Holocaust historian Jan Grabowski examines how the government, museums, schools and state institutions have been deployed to propagate a narrative of Polish national innocence. He recounts his own experience as the victim of smears and a notorious lawsuit for questioning the complicity of Poles in the destruction of the country’s Jews, and explores the far-reaching consequences of Poland’s historical distortions, which have been echoed and replicated worldwide to challenge the truth of the Holocaust.

The lecture includes a welcome from AJA President Michael Newman, as well as significant contributions from leading figures at the Holocaust Educational Trust (Martin Winstone, Head of Education and Senior Historical Advisor), the Polish University Abroad in London (Prof Michael Fleming, historian), and the National Holocaust Centre and Museum (Maiken Umbach, Professor of Modern History at Nottingham University). The National Holocaust Centre and Museum are strategic partners of the AJA, who sponsor the Centre’s Rapid Racism Unit.

Jan Grabowski is a Polish-Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa. His books include Hunt for the Jews, Night Without End and On Duty: The Role of the Polish Blue and Criminal Police in the Holocaust.