Jan Grabowski (historian)

Prof. Jan Zbigniew Grabowski (born June 24, 1962) is a Canadian-Polish historian serving as the professor of history at the University of Ottawa in Canada.^[1] Grabowski holds a PhD from Canada's Université de Montréal (University of Montreal) and an M.A. from Poland's University of Warsaw.^[1] His research focuses on the Holocaust in Poland,^[1] especially on Polish collaboration under Nazi occupation during WWII,^[1] which has made him a target of persistent threats.^[2]

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]

• 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]
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2020)^[4]
• Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's Insight Award (2022)^[6]

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]

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.

On another occasion, Prof. Grabowski said,^[10]

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.

In June 2023, Grabowski held 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.^[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]

• Rescue for Money: ‘Paid Helpers’ in Poland, 1939-1945 (2008)^[15]
• Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (2013)^[16]
• Night without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland (2022)^[17]
• On Duty: The Polish Blue and Criminal Police in the Holocaust (2024)^[18]

• 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.

• 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.
• „The Polish Police. Collaboration in the Holocaust”,. (2017). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Occasional Paper, April 2017. 33 p.
• “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.