History policy of the Law and Justice party

The Law and Justice party views the Jedwabne pogrom, in which hundreds of Jews were killed by Poles, as the center of a "pedagogy of shame".[1]

The program of the Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party has chapters on "identity" (tożsamość) and "history policy" (polityka historyczna, which has sometimes been translated "literally" as "politics of history").[2] The implementation of the PiS history policy consists in promoting, in Poland and internationally, a version of history based on a policy of memory that focuses on protecting the "good name" of the Polish nation.[3][4]

In the opinion of critics, this policy produces a narrative that Poles were victims and heroes during World War II and the communist era, and victims of crimes comparable to the Holocaust against Jews.[1][4][5][6][7][8][9] Discussion of events that does not fit this narrative (such as of antisemitism in Poland) is labelled as "pedagogy of shame."[10] "Pedagogy of shame," they argue, aims at dividing/polarizing and thus weakening the nation. It is also argued that at its core it is an effort to accomplish extracting money from Poland (a victim of Nazi Germany), by Jewish people and/or the State of Israel, which is labelled as an absurd proposition. According to the PiS party, this should be replaced with a "pedagogy of pride" which focuses on positive aspects of Polish history.[11] The party's history policy has divided historians, with some working with PiS to establish a history policy, seeing it as important to building a shared positive identity and historical truth and justice, while others see it as politicizing history and distorting historical facts.[4][12][13]

  1. ^ a b Michlic, Joanna Beata (2017). "'At the Crossroads': Jedwabne and Polish Historiography of the Holocaust". Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust. 31 (3): 296–306. doi:10.1080/23256249.2017.1376793. S2CID 165177860.
  2. ^ "Is Poland Retreating from Democracy?", by Elisabeth Zerofsky, July 23, 2018
  3. ^ Majewski, Piotr; Jaskulowski, Krzysztof. "Comments on the article by Piotr Żuk (2018): "Nation, National Remembrance, and Education – Polish Schools as Factories of Nationalism and Prejudice," Nationalities Papers, DOI: 10.1080/00905992.2017.1381079". doi:10.1080/00905992.2017.1381079. S2CID 158161859. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ a b c Hackmann, Jörg (2018). "Defending the "Good Name" of the Polish Nation: Politics of History as a Battlefield in Poland, 2015–18". Journal of Genocide Research. 20 (4): 587–606. doi:10.1080/14623528.2018.1528742. S2CID 81922100. Polish "politics of history" has risen to international political attention in January 2018, when a revised bill was introduced, which in media outside Poland is mostly referred to as "Holocaust law." Although this is not the official term – the act defines the tasks of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN2 ) – there is a seed of truth in such a shortcut, as will be shown below. This act, which met with harsh international criticism, was once again revised end of June 2018. These revisions are part of a broader strategy by the current national-conservative government led by Law and Justice (PiS) party which aims to impose nationally as well as internationally a specific vision, how Polish history shall be publicly presented and commemorated, first of all with regard to World War II and the socialist period. Such a historical or mnemonic policy has been placed high on the political agenda after PiS won the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2015, but seen in a broader context, politics of history has been intensively and broadly debated in Poland already since the beginning of the millennium.
  5. ^ Wieliński, Bartosz T. (1 June 2018). "Poland continues purging history books to the beat of PiS drum". www.euractiv.com. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
  6. ^ Mazzini, Mateusz (18 April 2024). "Poland's Historical Revisionism Is Pushing It Into Moscow's Arms". Foreign Policy.
  7. ^ Mazzini, Mateusz (27 April 2017). "PiS and Polish History". Foreign Affairs: America and the World. ISSN 0015-7120.
  8. ^ Hajdari, Una. "The Demagogue's Cocktail of Victimhood and Strength". The Atlantic. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
  9. ^ Holmgren, Beth (2019). "Holocaust History and Jewish Heritage Preservation: Scholars and Stewards Working in PiS-Ruled Poland". Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. 37 (1): 96–107. doi:10.1353/sho.2019.0004. S2CID 171970702.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Zuk was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ray2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ https://wyborcza.pl/1,75398,19204298,prezydent-duda-bierze-sie-za-polityke-historyczna-czyli-skonczyc.html Prezydent Duda bierze się za politykę historyczną, czyli skończyć z tą pedagogiką wstydu Paweł Wroński 18 November 2015 Wyborcza.pl
  13. ^ https://wiadomosci.dziennik.pl/historia/aktualnosci/artykuly/599833,andrzej-nowak-nagroda-lecha-kaczynskiego-pis.html Prof. Andrzej Nowak odebrał z rąk prezesa PiS Nagrodę im. Lecha Kaczyńskiego 9 June 2019, Dziennik.pl