When Past and Present Collide: Crimes of the Past in Poland’s Contemporary Public Discourse

In this podcast, INSS researcher Adi Kantor sits down with Jan Grabowski, Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, a leading scholar in Holocaust research in Poland. Together they discuss the role of Holocaust memory in contemporary Polish public discourse. What is the role of the historical truth in today’s Poland? of historical facts? How much can denial and distorted narratives of the past affect and even determine what younger generations know about the Holocaust in Poland today, and especially about crimes committed by large parts of Polish society against their Jewish neighbors during World War Two? What happens when narratives compete and are even contradictory?