Dariusz Ratajczyk - polsk revisionist?

In December 1999 the local court in Opole declared that Dr. Dariusz Ratajczyk, a researcher at the University of Opole, had infringed the law against Holocaust denial in his book Tematy niebezpeieczne (Dangerous Topics), but that his crime was “socially harmless” (see ASW 1999/2000). Two liberal mainstream newspapers Gazeta Wyborcza (Electoral Gazette) and Rzeczpospolita (Republic) thought that Ratajczyk should not be prosecuted, in the name of freedom of speech. Ratajczyk was accompanied in court by the notorious antisemitic activist Kazimierz Switon (well known for having planted crosses at Auschwitz) and by the publisher Leszek Bubel. The latter was quick to profit from the publicity surrounding the case and issued a pocket edition of the book, which was distributed widely by the state company Ruch. Several days after the verdict Ratajczyk was the guest at a political meeting organized by the SN. It should be noted that both Ratajczyk and Ryszard Bender (see below) were roundly condemned by the academic community in Poland and by the Archbishop of Lublin.

After months of deliberating, the University of Opole finally dismissed Ratajczyk from his academic post. Ryszard Bender, professor of history at the Catholic University of Lublin, had been defending Ratajczak in a regular column published in Glos, a radical right-wing weekly published by Antoni Macierewicz, a former minister of home affairs and currently a member of parliament. Disciplinary proceedings were begun against Bender after he, together with Ratajczyk and a historian of the Polish Church Peter Raina, participated in a Radio Maryja broadcast in January 2000, but no action was taken against him.

Ratajczyk’s views were supported by the historian Prof. Ryszard Bender of the Catholic University of Lublin. In January 2000 on Radio Maryja, of which he is a board member, Bender described Auschwitz as “not a death camp, but a labor camp. Jews, Gypsies and others were killed by hard labor, not always that hard and not always killed.” The Academic Senate of the Catholic University promised to take disciplinary action against Bender and distanced itself from the professor’s views, which it termed “noxious.” Bender’s remarks were also repudiated by Archbishop Jozef Zycinski of Lublin, and he was criticized, among others, by the Polish Union of Former Political Prisoners of Nazi Prisons and Concentration Camps, which also attacked Radio Maryja for allowing Ratajczyk and Bender to voice their views.
http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw99-2000/poland.htm

Polen återbördar polskt medborgarskap åt alla dem som tvingades lämna landet i kommunisternas judeutrensningar för fyra decennier sedan. Alla som vill får enligt den polske inrikesministern Gregorz Schetyna tillbaka medborgarskap "mycket, mycket snabbt".

Utvisningen av judarna var ett led i kommunistledaren Wladislaw Gomulkas eliminering av motståndare. Gomulka använde demokratidemonstrationerna vid Warszawas universitet i mars 1968 som förevändning. Polisen slog ned med hård hand mot demonstrationerna. Gomulka fruktade en Prag-vår i Polen.

– Gomulka såg chansen att bli av med problemet. Många av demonstrantledarna var söner eller döttrar till judiska kommunister och intellektuella, sade den polske historiker Dariusz Stola.
Följden var att uppemot 200 000 judar utvisades. Hälften berövades sitt medborgarskap. Många av dem hade just överlevt nazisternas koncentrationsläger. (FNB)