Prof. Jan Grabowski speaking at the 2019 Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków.
Grabowski was born in Warsaw to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. Grabowski's father was a Holocaust survivor and chemistry professor from Kraków who fought in the Warsaw Uprising.[3] While at the University of Warsaw, Grabowski was active in anti-communist activism. After receiving his M.A. in 1986, he emigrated to Canada, when the Polish communist regime relaxed the travel restrictions on citizens.[3] Grabowski has been serving as a professor at the University of Ottawa since 1993.[3]
Awards
Yad Vashem Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung senior research scholar award (2005)[4]
Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research (2014)[5]
Arie van Mansum Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education (2019)[4]
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's Insight Award (2022)[6]
Incidents
Libel lawsuit
In February 2021, Prof. Jan Grabowski and Prof. Barbara Engelking were ordered by a Polish court to apologize to an 81-year old Polish citizen who sued them for libel over a book in which they discussed the complicity of Catholic Poles in the Holocaust.[7] In August 2021, a judge in the Warsaw Court of Appeal overturned the ruling.[8]
Research on Holocaust distortion on Wikipedia
In February 2023, Prof. Jan Grabowski and Dr. Shira Klein published the 57-page article Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust[9] in The Journal of Holocaust Research, Prof. Jan Grabowski and Dr. Shira Klein reported to have found widespread distortions of Poland's Holocaust history on the English Wikipedia,[9][10] which involved the exaggeration[9][10] 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 in the Holocaust.[9][10]
Grabowski and Klein also criticized English Wikipedia's administrators and the Wikimedia Foundation's lack of will to handle,[9][10] leaving the site vulnerable to disinformation:
Wikipedia’s administrators have largely failed to uphold Wikipedia’s policies [. ...] unable to deal with the issue of persistent distortion [...] Wikipedia’s articles [...] have become a hub of misinformation and antisemitic canards.
As a historian, I was aware [...] of various distortions [...] of the Holocaust on Wikipedia. What I found shocking, was the sheer scale [...] and the small number of individuals needed to distort the history of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity.
Physical assault
In June 2023, Grabowski held a seminar on Poland's history of antisemitism in Warsaw. Grzegorz Braun, a far-rightMP, smashed Grabowski's microphone and forced the seminar to be cancelled.[11] During the 2023 Hanukkah, the same MP put out a menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament,[12] who was expelled by the parliament and charged with hate crimes.[12] Braun's behavior caused a global uproar.[13] Despite Braun's actions, he was elected to the European Parliament in June 2024.[14]
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.
Germans in the Eyes of the Gestapo, Ciechanow District, 1939-1945. (2004). Contemporary European History, 13(1), 21–43.
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.
Grabowski, J. (2007). Jewish Defendants in German and Polish Courts in the Warsaw District. Yad Vashem Studies, 35(1), 49–81.
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. (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.
2010s
Grabowski, J. (2012). Rural Society and the Jews in Hiding: Elders, Night Watches, Firefighters, Hostages and Manhunts. Yad Vashem Studies, 40(1), 1–26.
Grabowski, J. (2013). Post-war Police Investigations in France, or an Attempt at. Zaglada Zydow, 9.
The Role of “Bystanders” in the Implementation of the “Final Solution” in Occupied Poland. (2015). Yad Vashem Studies, (43), 1, 2015, p. 113-133.
The Holocaust as a Polish Problem. (2016). Eastern European Culture, Politics and Societies, 2016, 16–27.
“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 and Poland’s “History Policy.” (2017). Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 11, 2017, p. 1-6.
“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.
"Polish appeals court dismisses claims against Holocaust book historians". Euractiv. August 17, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2025. An appeals court ruled that two historians accused of tarnishing the memory of a Polish villager in a book about the Holocaust need not apologise, overturning a lower court ruling that raised fears about freedom of academic research.
"Polish MP who doused menorah wins higher office". Israel Hayom. June 10, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024. Grzegorz Braun gained notoriety last December for extinguishing a Hanukkah menorah in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher, labeling Judaism as a "cult of the Talmud and Satan."
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