Earlier this month, my colleague Ibrahim Daair had the opportunity to do a live online interview with Jan Grabowski, a professor of history at the University of Ottawa and one of Canada’s top Holocaust scholars. The event was part of a partnership between The Conversation Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Prof. Grabowski is one of the recipients of SSHRC’s Impact Awards, which honour
“the very best ideas and research about people, human thought and behaviour, and culture—helping us understand and improve the world around us, today and into the future.”
Prof. Grabowski’s research is fascinating – he wrote an article about it for us this month – because it looks at the role of the “bystander” in Nazi-occupied Poland during the war. As he wrote in his article, “the results of many years of research pointed to the fact that at least two-thirds of Jews who went into hiding had either been murdered or betrayed to the Nazis by their Polish neighbours.” Instead of being praised for exposing this dark history, he was sued for libel under a Polish law that makes it illegal for anyone who claims that Poles were complicit in the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
“The defence of history and the struggle to preserve our right to know what has happened are among the foundations of the democratic system,” he wrote.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Prof. Grabowski’s research during Black History Month because of the ongoing debate in the United States (and, to some extent, in Canada as well) about the merits of teaching critical race theory in schools. As politicians use their offices to either ban the teaching of critical race theory or water down other Black history courses, this denial of the past continues to be a problem in the 21st century.
History should make us feel uncomfortable. Understanding the past can lead to a stronger, more equitable society in the future. For your reading on the last weekend of Black History Month, I’ve included a selection of recent and archive stories from The Conversation network.
Have a great weekend and we’ll be back in your Inbox on Monday.
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