Museum Statement on Free Academic Inquiry Into the Holocaust

February 05, 2021

Museum Statement on Free Academic Inquiry into the Holocaust

The current lawsuit in Poland against two eminent Holocaust historians raises serious concerns about the future of independent Holocaust scholarship in Poland and elsewhere. This is one of several troubling trends in the region and beyond, such as efforts to distort Holocaust history and politicize Holocaust education. 

Honestly reckoning with Holocaust history is essential to the health of societies. Unfettered scholarship and open public discourse are necessary in order to uncover the full scope of Holocaust history and understand its continued relevance. Since the fall of communism, successive Polish governments and institutions worked to build constructive dialogue around Holocaust memory and preserve the Nazi extermination sites located on Polish territory. The Museum hopes that Poland will continue to recognize the importance of its unique position, and calls on it — as it calls on all governments — to ensure that free academic inquiry into the Holocaust can be vigorously pursued and published now and in the future without fear of intimidation or legal threat.

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