THE FINAL DISCREDIT OF JAN T. GROSS
JERZY ROBERT NOWAK
For many years Jan Tomasz Gross has been completely unpunished, and glorified by national anti-Polish leaders. It lasted so long that he even made a disgusting slander on pages of the German journal ‘Die Welt’ on 13 September 2015 – in which he wrote, among the others, that ‘the horrible image of Poles comes from the Nazis times’, and that Poles during the Second World War ‘killed more Jews than the Germans’. Then he added during the Second World War Poles ‘killed more Jews than the Germans’. It caused outrage in Poland. Unfortunately – retarded by 15 years. How much it was missing soon after the publication of the first Poles-attacking and lying book by Gross entitled ‘Neighbours’! We paid a lot in the international arena for this long passivity towards slanders, where disgraceful anti-Polish thesis of Gross triumphed.
‘Niedziela’ did as much as possible to unmask the Poles-attacker
Let’s remind that ‘Niedziela’ can be proud of the fact that from the initiative of prelate priest Skubiś, as the first Polish magazine, it devoted a lot of place for unmasking slanders of Gross soon after the publication of ‘Neighbours’. It was my series of articles ‘100 lies of Gross’. False words of Gross had been unmasked also by other Polish historians from the very beginning, among the others, prof. Tomasz Strzembosz and dr. Piotr Gontarczyk. How sad a fact is that soon after that there was no general condemnation of general statements of Gross, proving that in his case it does not concern education, historical truth but a fraud with clear anti-Polish accent. At the moment of the publication of the libel by Gross, a big part of the Polish elite, including a big group of historians and publicists, did not turn out to be reliable. What elite is it, which was keeping silent for fear of being accused of political incorrectness?!
Why are previous fans of Gross keeping silent?
It would seem that the insane attack of Gross on Poles in ‘Die Welt’ would finally bring awakening among our national lovers of this fraud. Well, waiting for their awakening turned out to be an illusory hope. Instead of getting separated from the Poles-attacker, they lurked fearfully through various editorial offices and salons and dream only about not being called by their surnames or mentioned as those who paid tribute to this most harmful sower of anti-Polish hatred in the world. As far as I know, only two people among them have strongly condemned Gross, although they still cannot admit their own guilt and their disgraceful popularizing this enemy of Poland and Poles. One of those people was Monika Olejnik known for her love for lies, who suddenly admitted that Gross ‘made himself disgraceful’ with the text in ‘Die Welt’. However, she did not separate himself from various cases of her getting dishonoured through advertising Gross. A director of the Jewish Historical Institute prof. Paweł Śpiewak separated himself from Gross, when he had found his text in ‘Die Welt’ as ‘an attack on Poles’. However, he was not brave enough to say that he was ashamed himself for his previous paean to the honour of Gross, in the times when he praised him as an alleged master of interpretation of history.
At the present situation, after the disgusting anti-Polish libel of Gross in ‘Die Welt’, a kind of a litmus test of an honest attitude to Poland and Poles should be separating previous adorers and popularizers from Gross. Here I mean particularly most influential people, beginning with Adam Michnik, who in an introduction to the German issue of the ‘Neighbours’ wrote that Gross was a continuator of tradition of Mickiewicz and Słowacki in unmasking Polish lies (!). Did Michnik separate himself from Gross? On contrary: only a few days after the scandal of Gross, in a German newspaper, he attacked alleged xenophobia of the Law and Justice Party. It was the behavior of the man, disgracefully honoured with the Order of the White Eagle by Bronisław Komorowski! Leftist-liberal professors Andrzej Friszke and Andrzej Paczkowski did not make an apology to Poles for their earlier supporting Gross.
What is astonishing, is the lack of any sense of guilt in some of known Catholic supporters of Gross, such as Fr. Adam Boniecki or Henryk Woźniakowski. We remind that the chairman of the previous catholic publishing house Znak, Henryk Woźniakowski does not feel guilty even now for publishing two anti-Polish and anti-Catholic book of Gross: ‘Fear’ and ‘Golden Harvest’. And in these both books Gross slandered the Polish Catholic hierarchy, even cardinal Adam Sapiecha, a protector of the Znak in the beginnings of its existence. The chairman of the Znak must have known my correction of Gross’ slanders against cardinal Sapiecha, which I presented in my book: ‘New lies of Gross’ (Warsaw 2006) – on the basis of memories of a director of a Jewish hospital of infectious illnesses in the Cracow ghetto of Aleksander Biberstein. And, despite it, he allowed for publishing another book by Gross attacking cardinal Sapiecha.
Why are representatives of Jewish associations keeping silent?
What is astonishing, is outrageous silence of representatives of such Jewish organizations in our country as Federation of Jewish Associations in Poland, consisting of, among the others, an Association of Jewish Combatants and Victims in the Second World War or an Association of Holocaust Children. Nothing was said by prominent members of the Council of Museum of Polish Jews’ History POLIN, built mainly thanks to the generous support of the Polish authorities. I will ask directly: why is the representative of the Council of this museum – a historian Marian Turski keeping silent, or its influential member – the former foreign minister of the Polish Republic Adam Daniel Rotfed? It is worth reminding that as a foreign minister, Rotfed fooled himself when receiving the Medal of Freedom for Jan Karski from president Barack Obama. At that moment, Obama said a disgraceful lie about ‘Polish death camps’, whereas Rotfed, instead of saying briefly: ‘No, Sir, these were German death camps’, was sitting silent as if being dumb!. Let’s ask all those influential people from the Council of the Museum of Polish Jews’ History POLIN, where their patriotism and loyalty towards the country, in which they live, are. I will also ask: why is the former ambassador of Israel in Warsaw Szewach Weiss silent, who strongly declares his friendship towards Poland?
Today, when courage became cheap…
I will remind again – if the so-called Polish elite had reacted to the slanders of Gross in 2000 at once, there would not be the problem of enormous harm done to Poland and Poles in the world through his false statements. He would have been considered at once as a Poles-attacking impostor and jester. But most people writing articles were keeping silent thanks to which Gross’ people, like the director of the National Remembrance Institute, Leon Kieres, could triumph. Today, when times have changed and when the wave of patriotic protest in defence of Poland is growing, suddenly courage became cheap… Now, when it is possible, there are more and more groups of critics of Gross. Patriotism neophytes are getting tighter and how they forget about those people who have been consequently unmasking Gross for years. For example, I notice that some people care about omitting my surname among people who revealed the lie of Gross. They may be doing it from shame that they were silent, while I was unmasking anti-Polishness, publishing three books about his slanders: ‘100 lies of Gross’ (2000), ‘New lies of Gross’ (2006) and ‘False words and silence of Gross’ (2011). For being consistent in this area I paid by being constantly attacked by ‘Wyborcza’ newspaper, and also by other similar authorities or politicians. I will remind their scandals in my diaries prepared for publishing ‘The winds of life’. However, now, let’s stop remembering sad things of the past. Let’s try to judge the issue of Gross till the end, including the court process against him for slandering and falsifying the Polish history and constant false presenting our nation in a disgusting way.
AA
„Niedziela” 43/2015