Denialism: Polish Style

August 22, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In August 1944, as the Red Army approached, the Germans shot dead every Jewish prisoner in the Treblinka I forced labor camp. The Polish prisoners were locked in their barracks for the duration of the execution, then released. Today, at that execution site, a visitor finds a large cross, a Way of the Cross, and a myriad of smaller crosses. There is no mention of the 10,000 to 12,000 Jews murdered there. This is the landscape that Dr. Elżbieta Janicka, a historian and cultural anthropologist at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, calls "Denialism: Polish Style."

The Distinct Form of Polish Denial

Janicka begins with a critical distinction: Holocaust denial in the transatlantic sense—denying the fact of the Nazi genocide of Jews—barely exists in Poland. Instead, the Polish form of denial is more insidious. It involves ignoring the Polish realities of the Holocaust and obfuscating the roles Poles played in the structure of the crime. The goal is not to erase the Holocaust, but to render its proper reconstruction and understanding impossible. This denialism operates through a systematic campaign to promote Polish martyrdom upon the Jewish one, making the space of the Holocaust "symbolically profitable" for Poland. Janicka argues this is not a problem of memory, but of present-day social practices that have never been rejected or reassessed.

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

Never miss an episode of New Books in Jewish Studies

Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

What you'll learn

1 (06:01) **Defining "Denialism: Polish Style"** - Ślebioda distinguishes Polish denialism from transatlantic Holocaust denial, framing it as the erasure of Polish complicity.
2 (08:35) **The Treblinka Railway Station: A Site of Robbery and Erasure** - A tour of the former station reveals how local Poles profited from Jewish suffering during the war.
3 (17:28) **The Pilatsky Institute's Monument and Institutionalized Distortion** - The new monument at the station, erected by a state institute, exemplifies top-down historical manipulation.
4 (25:33) **The Ongoing Destruction of the Station Site** - The Polish state and Treblinka Museum show no interest in preserving the remaining structures of the railway station.
5 (27:48) **The Entrance to the Death Camp: Crucifixes and Polish Martyrdom** - The approach to Treblinka II is marked by new Christian symbols that shift the focus away from Jewish victims.
6 (32:04) **The Symbolic Stones: Jedwabne and the Erasure of Polish Perpetration** - The stones marking Jewish communities at Treblinka II include names of towns where Poles murdered Jews, but these are actively obscured.
7 (37:54) **The Forced Labor Camp (Treblinka I): A Christianized Execution Site** - The memorial for the labor camp, where most victims were Jews, has been transformed into a Christian monument.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Holocaust distortion in Poland involves reshaping or minimizing facts about the Holocaust, often emphasizing Polish victimhood while obscuring instances of local collaboration, participation, or indifference. It appears in political rhetoric, memory laws, public commemorations, and attacks on critical scholarship. YIVO’s Poland vs. Holocaust History series examines these dynamics and situates the Polish case within a broader European context.

Elżbieta Janicka focuses on the case of the former German Nazi death camp Treblinka, the place of murder and (un)rest of nearly one million Jews from several European countries, the majority from Poland. While keeping in mind that “Treblinka” is as an umbrella term for the forced labor camp Treblinka I (1941-1944), the extermination camp Treblinka II (1942-1943), and a railway station at Treblinka the village, Janicka examines symbolic topography, such as the symbols and narratives that are imprinted into these sites under the auspices of the Treblinka Museum. Regarding the unrestricted Polish bottom-up and top-down fight to “conquer the space” of the Holocaust and make it symbolically profitable for Poland, Janicka raises the question: Why doesn’t the present Polish strategy of “promoting Polish martyrdom upon the Jewish one” trigger an international scandal and condemnation?

Janicka argues that while Polish cultural institutions do not deny the Holocaust itself, they practice a form of denialism by obscuring the reality of Polish involvement in the Holocaust. This lecture fits into a broader debate about Polish public institutions that promote a counter-history of the Holocaust and have at their disposal extraordinary means of propaganda both within Poland and abroad.

This lecture originally took place on February 19, 2026.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies