Whitewash Poland and the Jews Jewish Quarterly 257

Poland, the epicentre of the Holocaust, began denying responsibility as soon as the Nazi atrocities ended. The nation's distortion of history continues today - with disturbing consequences.

"Holocaust denial has now been replaced by a much more dangerous and insidious foe."-Jan Grabowski

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.Whitewash grapples with modern Poland's failure to acknowledge its role in the 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.