Dalej jest noc

Several scholars, mainly associated with Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, have criticized Dalej jest noc for using unreliable sources, for ignoring the context of Germany's draconian occupation policies and practices, for some authors' alleged personal interests, for selective treatment of witness statements (questioning Polish witnesses' statements, while taking at face value witness statements that were in line with authors' theses), and for presenting rumors and gossip as actual proven facts. Kornelia Konczal writes that, while the Polish government cut funding to the journal of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research and declined to renew Barbara Engelking's appointment to the International Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, it is difficult to say whether these were coordinated actions or coincidental events.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

Historian Piotr Gontarczyk charges the book with "scholarly mystification", citing the book's description of events in the Bochnia Ghetto in German-occupied Poland. Gontarczyk writes that the book "makes the Jewish Ghetto Police disappear, replacing it with Polish police." The Bochnia Ghetto, he says, witnessed "scenes out of Dante, with the participation of the Jewish Ghetto Police (Jüdische Ordnungstdienst); there were no Polish police [inside Jewish ghettos], but the book... says the bunkers [in which some Jews hid, hoping to escape deportation to German extermination camps] were searched by Polish police."[10][11] One of the book's authors, Dagmara Swałtek-Niewińska has replied that Gontarczyk is incorrect, and that the book discusses the Jewish Ghetto Police in numerous places, and she in turn charges Gontarczyk with not having read the book thoroughly and with drawing incorrect conclusions from a cursory reading.[12]

Historian Jacek Chrobaczyński writes that the study is based on solid analysis of sources. He notes the naming of perpetrators and co-perpetrators – individuals who took over Jewish property – and participation by the Polish Blue Police, Baudienst, fire brigades, and military guards. He writes that the study is important in deconstructing some political myths and propaganda in Polish history writing, journalism, church pronouncements, and politics. He concludes that the two volumes are "solid and reliable scholarship".[13]

Karolina Koprowska, writes that the book focuses on micro-history studies and case-study analysis. She calls it a unique book with both a clear scholarly goal and a political message, taking a clear stance in the ongoing discussion in Poland about Polish-Jewish historical relations. She writes that the book is valuable for its solid methodology, rare and personal focus on micro-history, and demonstration of how significant were varying local characteristics, which resulted in widely different and not fully generalizable circumstances that Jews faced in different parts of occupied Poland. She does note that the book may, however, lack an overarching methodological conclusion and does not attempt a new grand theory of Polish-Jewish wartime history.[14]

Beth Holmgren writes that Dalej jest noc is a "highly detailed, systematically organized, data-based analysis of how and by whom the Holocaust was perpetrated in nine separate Polish counties".[15] Ingo Loose, a historian at the Institute for Contemporary History, states that the book debunks the view that "non-Jewish Poles helped Jews en masse" and were at worst bystanders. He states that the book will continue to have value for many years and to many researchers, expressing hope that the book would eventually be translated into German or English.[16]

Tomasz Roguski's review of the book focuses particularly on the chapter by Jan Grabowski. Roguski writes that the book deals with an interesting topic that needs further research. He commends the authors for pioneering work but criticizes some of its methodology, its use of some primary sources to the neglect of others, its too narrow focus, and its statistical conclusions.[6]

Adam Kopciowski writes that "the study was based on an impressive range of sources. Its authors’ widespread search for sources included many archives in Poland, Israel, the United States, Germany, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. These include the acts of the German and Polish administration, ... the Polish underground state, the government–in-exile, Jewish self-help organizations, the Polish language press published by the Nazis, the underground press, the acts from the post-war trials in Poland and Germany, as well as the records of Jewish and Polish witnesses. The authors managed to develop an exhaustive picture of a previously under studied stage of the Holocaust of the Polish Jews. They developed an excellent methodology which—it is to be hoped—will be applied to subsequent studies of this type concerning the remaining parts of the General Government."[17]

Dalej jest noc accuses Edward Malinowski, sołtys of the Polish village of Malinowo, of having been responsible for the deaths of dozens of Jews who were in hiding from the Germans during World War II. His 94-year-old relative Filomena Leszczyńska is suing Professors Engelking and Grabowski, the book's editors, in Warsaw court for defaming Malinowski; Leszczyńska asserts that, on the contrary, Malinowski had assisted Jews, at the risk of his own life and the lives of his family.[18] Leszczyńska's lawyer was hired by the Polish League against Defamation. Three sentences in the book were objected to; the plaintiffs seek 100,000 PLN in compensation, and an apology to be printed in a newspaper. Engelking responded: "I didn't write that I thought he had betrayed the Jews. I reported the witness's opinion". Drogicka's two sons confirmed her account.[19][20][21]

Article in Gazeta Wyborcza states that articles in right-wing media present the authors of the book as "falsifiers who turned a hero into a blackmailer" and such articles have attracted many antisemitic comments, such as "People like he should be loaded into the cattle cars and sent East where they belong" and "Jews attack Poland with the help of lies, slander and they are the Fifth column in Poland".[22]

Israel's official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, stated "Legal proceedings against Holocaust scholars because of their research are incompatible with accepted academic research norms and amount to an attack on the effort to achieve a full and balanced picture of the history of the Holocaust".[23][24] Zygmunt Stępiński, director of the Polin Museum, stated, "The involvement in this trial of an organisation heavily subsidised with public funds can be easily construed as a form of censorship and an attempt to frighten scholars away from publishing the results of their research out of fear of a lawsuit and the ensuing costly litigation".[25]

• Hunt for the Jews