Jan Grabowski (historian)

Prof. Jan Zbigniew Grabowski (born June 24, 1962) is a Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa. Grabowski holds a PhD from Université de Montréal and an MA from the University of Warsaw. He specializes in the Holocaust in Poland, especially the topic of Polish collaboration with Nazi occupiers, for which he has faced harassment from Polish nationalists. 


  As of June 2025, he has an h-index of 17 and an i10-index of 28.

Life


Grabowski was born in Warsaw, Poland to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. Grabowski's father was a Holocaust survivor from Kraków who fought in the Warsaw Uprising. While at the University of Warsaw, Grabowski joined anti-communist activities. After receiving his MA in 1986, he emigrated to Canada. Grabowski has been a professor at the University of Ottawa since 1993.

Awards

 Yad Vashem Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung senior research scholar award (2005)
 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research (2014)
 Arie van Mansum Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education (2019)
 Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2020)
 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's Insight Award (2022)

Incidents

Libel lawsuit

In February 2021, Profs. Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking were sued in a Polish court over a book about the role of Catholic Poles in the Holocaust. 

  In August 2021, the Warsaw Court of Appeal dismissed the lawsuit against them. 



Research on Holocaust distortion on English Wikipedia

In February 2023, Profs. Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein published a 57-page article, reporting the widespread distortion of Holocaust history on English Wikipedia, 
  which involved the exaggeration of Jewish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers, invention of Jewish "atrocities" against Poles, downplaying of Polish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers and blaming Jews for their own suffering:


Grabowski and Klein also criticized English Wikipedia's administrators and the Wikimedia Foundation's lack of will to handle, leaving the site vulnerable to disinformation:

On another occasion, Prof. Grabowski said,

Some misconceptions about the Holocaust in Poland are summarized as follows: 

 Type  Summary Death toll Myth 1: "3 million non-Jewish Poles were killed in WWII."Wikipedia article, “Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust,” Wikipedia, revision from 8:06, May 24, 2022,Fact: The number was claimed in 1946 by Jakub Berman, the head of the Polish communist secret police, to create a false equivalence between Jewish and Polish victimhood.Karyn Ball and Per Anders Rudling, “The Underbelly of Canadian Multiculturalism: Holocaust Obfuscation and Envy in the Debate about the Canadian Museum for Human Rights,” Holocaust Studies, vol. 20, no. 3 (2014): pp. 33–80. The death toll of non-Jewish Poles was 1.8 million according to the most recent estimates.C. Łuczak, “Szanse i trudności bilansu demograficznego Polski w latach 1939–1945,” Dzieje Najnowsze 2 (1994): pp. 9–15. Scale of helping Jews Myth 2: "Thousands of Poles were executed for helping Jews."Fact: 800 Poles were executed for helping Jews according to the most recent estimates.Ryszard Walczak et al. (eds.), Those Who Helped: Polish Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (Warszawa: IPN, 1997).Martyna Grądzka-Rejak and Aleksandra Namysło, (eds.), Represje za pomoc Żydom na okupowanych ziemiach polskich w czasie II wojny światowej, vol. 1 (Warsaw: IPN, 2019), p. 464. Scale of hiding Jews Myth 3: "450,000 Poles hid Jews in their houses during the Holocaust."Richard C. Lukas, Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1989), p. 15.Fact: The number was promoted by Władysław Żarski-Zajdler, a writer propagandizing for the Polish communist regime during the 1968 antisemitic campaign. Fewer than 30,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust.Natalia Sawka, “Antysemita Leszek Żebrowski poprowadzi wykład o ‘żołnierzach wyklętych,’” Gazeta Wyborcza, March 1, 2016 Scale of Polish collaboration Myth 4: "<1% Poles collaborated with Nazi occupiers."The “Israeli War Crimes Commission” statistics seem to originate from an essay from the 1960s by one Leo Heiman, which provides no footnote. Leo Heiman, “Ukrainians and the Jews,” in Ukrainians and Jews, Articles, Testimonies, Letters and Official Documents Dealing with Interrelations of Ukrainians and Jews in the Past and Present: A Symposium (New York: The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, 1966), p. 60.Fact: Several independent research showed otherwise.Machcewicz and Persak, (eds.), Wokół Jedwabnego; Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, (eds.), Dalej jest noc: losy Żydów w wybranych powiatach okupowanej Polski (Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland), 2 vols. (Warsaw: Polish Center for Holocaust Research, 2018). Polish Blue Police Myth 5: "Many Polish Blue Police were executed for refusing to follow Nazi orders to arrest Jews."Engelking and Grabowski, (eds.), Dalej jest noc; Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, “Polnische Bürgermeister und der Holocaust im Generalgouvernement Besatzung, Kollaboration und Handlungsmöglichkeiten,” Bulletin des Fritz Bauer Instituts, (2021), pp. 26–35.Fact: Proven cases have not been found by mainstream historians yet. Instead, the Polish Blue Police helped Nazi occupiers kill Jews enthusiastically. 

  Polish Underground State Myth 6: "The Polish Underground State's court investigated 17,000 suspected Polish collaborators and sentenced 3,500 to death."Fact: No more than seven collaborators were sentenced to death by the Polish Underground State's court,Andrzej Żbikowski, Polacy i Zydzi pod okupacja niemiecką, 1939-1945: Studia i Materiały (Warsaw: IPN, 2006), pp. 482–84. despite desperate requests from the Committee to Aid Jews (Żegota). Policies against helping Jews Myth 7: "Poles were specifically targeted by the Nazis for helping Jews. The Nazis imposed death penalty on Poles because of this."Fact: Nazi laws against helping Jews were applied equally to millions of non-German subjects under Nazi occupation.The Third Decree of General Governor Hans Frank concerning restrictions on residency in the Generalgouvernement and introducing the death penalty for aid rendered to Jews, October 15, 1941; Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement. Dziennik Rozporządzeń dla Generalnego Gubernatorstwa, Cracow, October 25, 1941, p. 595. The death penalty was introduced on October 15, 1941, long before any obvious help could have been noticed. Revelation of the Holocaust Myth 8: "Polish Army officer Witold Pilecki told the Allies about the Holocaust via Polish government-in-exile courier Jan Karski."Fact: Jan Karski did not tell the Allies about the Holocaust.Adam Puławski, “Revisiting Jan Karski’s Final Mission,” Israeli Journal of Foreign Affairs, vol. 15, no. 2 (2021): pp. 289–97; Adam Puławski, Wobec niespotykanego w dziejach mordu. Rząd RP na uchodźstwie, Delegatura Rządu RP na Kraj, AK a eksterminacja ludności żydowskiej od wielkiej akcji do powstania w getcie warszawskim (Chełm: Stowarzyszenie Rocznik Chełmski, 2018). Karski left Poland in fall 1942, while Pilecki did not write a report about the Holocaust until summer 1943, when most Polish Jews had already been killed. Pilecki could not have given Karski a report that did not exist when Karski left.  Nazi reprisals against Poles helping Jews Myth 9: "The Nazi murdered 20,000 Polish villagers in Białka over some of them helping Jews."Wikipedia article, “Nazi Crimes Against the Polish Nation,” Wikipedia, revision from 14:14, June 15, 2022,Fact: It is true that individual shootings of Białka's Polish villagers happened, but the confirmed death toll was 96.Geoffrey P. Megargee, ed., Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, vol. 1: Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA) (Washington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2009), p. 692. Post-war pogroms against Jews Myth 10: "The July 1946 Kielce pogrom was planned by the Soviet occupiers."Fact: The claim has been roundly rejected by mainstream scholars, including Joanna Tokarska-Bakir who won the 2019 Yad Vashem International Book Award for a book that disproved the claim, which is only held by some Polish nationalists and conspiracy theorists.

Physical assault
On 30 May 2023, Grabowski gave a seminar on Poland's history of antisemitism in Warsaw. Grzegorz Braun, a far-right MP, smashed Grabowski's microphone and forced the seminar to be cancelled. During the 2023 Hanukkah, the same MP put out a menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament, who was expelled by the parliament and charged with hate crimes. Braun's behavior caused a global uproar.  


  Despite Braun's actions, he was elected to the European Parliament in June 2024. 



Selected works

Books

2020s

  Publications List (year in descending order) 
 Grabowski, J. On Duty: The Polish Blue and Criminal Police in the Holocaust, Yad Vashem, 2024.
 Grabowski, J. & Engelking, B. Night without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland, Indiana University Press, 2022.

2010s

  Publications List (year in descending order) 
 Grabowski, J. Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, Indiana University Press, 2013.

2000s

  Publications List (year in descending order) 
 Grabowski, J. Rescue for Money: 'Paid Helpers' in Poland, 1939-1945, Yad Vashem, 2008.

Articles

2020s

  Publications List (year in descending order) 
 Grabowski, J. & Klein, S. (2023). Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust. The Journal of Holocaust Research, 37(2), 133‒190.

2010s

  Publications List (year in descending order) 
 “A Study in the Microhistory of the Holocaust: The Liquidierungsaktion in Węgrów Ghetto.” (2018). Proceedings of XIV Lessons & Legacies, Claremont McKenna College, (P. Jaskot & A. Garbarini Editors), HEF, Chicago, 2018.
 “The Holocaust and Poland’s “History Policy.” (2017). Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 11, 2017, p. 1–6.
 „The Polish Police. Collaboration in the Holocaust”,. (2017). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Occasional Paper, April 2017. p. 33
 “Microhistory of the Holocaust in Poland: New Sources, New Trails”, in:  p. 131–151. (2017). Microhistories of the Holocaust”, Claire Zalc and Tal Bruttmann (Editors), Berghahn, New York, Oxford, 2017.
 Grabowski, J., & Libionka, D. (2017). “Distorting and Re-writing the History of the Holocaust in Poland: The Case of the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews During World War II in Markowa". Yad Vashem Studies, (45), 2017, p. 29–61.
 The Holocaust as a Polish Problem. (2016). Eastern European Culture, Politics and Societies, 2016, p. 16–27.
 The Role of “Bystanders” in the Implementation of the “Final Solution” in Occupied Poland. (2015). Yad Vashem Studies, (43), 1, 2015, p. 113–133.
 Grabowski, J. (2013). Post-war Police Investigations in France, or an Attempt at. Zaglada Zydow, 9.
 Grabowski, J. (2012). Rural Society and the Jews in Hiding: Elders, Night Watches, Firefighters, Hostages and Manhunts. Yad Vashem Studies, 40(1), 1–26.

2000s

  Publications List (year in descending order) 
 Grabowski, J. (2009). German Anti-Jewish Propaganda in the General gouvernement, 1939-1945: Inciting Hate through Posters, Films, and Exhibitions. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 23(3), 381–412.
 Grabowski, J. (2008). Rewriting the History of Polish-Jewish Relations from a Nationalist Perspective: The Recent Publications of the Institute of National Remembrance. Yad Vashem Studies, 36(1), 253–270.
 Grabowski, J. (2007). Jewish Defendants in German and Polish Courts in the Warsaw District. Yad Vashem Studies, 35(1), 49–81.
 Grabowski, J. (2005). Polish managers of Jewish Property Seized by the Nazis. Zaglada Zydow, 1(1), 253–260.
 Grabowski, J. (2005). Warsaw Jews Expelled from Switzerland to the Generalgouvernement. A Case Study. Zaglada Zydow, 1(1), 261–269.
 Germans in the Eyes of the Gestapo, Ciechanow District, 1939-1945. (2004). Contemporary European History, 13(1), 21–43.
 Grabowski, J. (2004). A Holocaust in Northem Mazovia (Poland) in the Light of the Archives of Ciechanow Gestapo. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 18(3), 460–477.

Related pages

 Yehuda Bauer
 Shimon Redlich
 Jeffrey Kopstein
 Deborah Lipstadt
 Izabella Tabarovsky

Footnotes

References

Category:1962 births
Category:Living people
Category:Historical studies
Category:Canadian historians