Former director of the World War II Museum in Gdańsk and former advisor to Donald Tusk, Prof. Paweł Machcewicz published a scandalous article in “Rzeczpospolita” justifying the removal of the exhibitions about the Blessed. Ulma Family, St. Maximilian Kolbe and Capt. Pilecki from the exhibition of the World War II Museum. He also called for “confronting the history of the murder of Jews by Poles.”

Paweł Machcewicz vented his bitterness over Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s latest explanation regarding the dispute over the removal of an installation about Polish national heroes and martyrs from the German occupation of Poland from the World War II Museum exhibition. He said Tusk did not “defend historical and cultural autonomy”.

In his text, Machcewicz refers to Michał Szułdrzyński’s considerations that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Poland might be connected with the removal of the exhibition at the Museum of the Second World War.

Let us recall that the deputy editor-in-chief of “Rzeczpospolita” wrote about Machcewicz that he had a “bad time”, given Scholz’s visit to Warsaw, which was allegedly inconvenient for Donald Tusk.

Criticism of PiS’s historical policies

Prof. Machcewicz even accused Szułdrzyński of presenting a “political and instrumental approach to history,” which is the approach that, according to him, PiS should have used in its history policy. He noted that this narrative is still strong in Poland, even though Jarosław Kaczyński’s party was ousted from power.

This also applies to the leader of the People’s Party, Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, who from the very beginning of the Museum scandal criticized the new management and the shameful actions in the context of erasing the glorious pages of Polish history. Machcewicz accused the head of the Ministry of National Defense that perhaps there is no country in the world where there is a war, and the defense minister tweeted about historical policy. As you can see, symmetry does not work among the hunwejbin in the new government.

Paweł Machcewicz explains in his mistranslation that it is incorrect to say that the World War II Museum does not devote enough space to Polish martyrdom. According to him, this institution touches on this topic the most. At the same time, he relativizes the figure of St. Maximilian Kolbe or the Ulma Family, explaining that there were other people who saved Jews during the occupation or gave their lives for others. Machcewicz probably wanted to find an atheist of Jewish origin who gave his life for Catholics, but for some reason he could not find one.

Should politicians take this decision? In my opinion, no. They did it during the Polish People’s Republic and want to do it during the PiS government, which is a denial of the basic principle of historical and cultural autonomy, which is one of the foundations of the democratic rule of law, introduced in Poland in 1989.

— wrote Machcewicz himself, apparently forgetting that he was an adviser to Prime Minister Donald Tusk for six years.

The author of the text is also angry that Szułdrzyński states the obvious fact that “the exhibition is not a historical seminar, but an element of the state historical policy.” After all, the Polish-German House announced in Berlin will play this role and no other. Is Machcewicz criticizing the findings of Scholz and Tusk? Tusk’s former advisor seems to have forgotten that museums are not completely autonomous centers and should also achieve the goals of a particular community, and not just spread the personal views of their administrators.

Machcewicz even went so far as to say that the main goal of PiS’s historical policy was the alleged “slander and intimidation” of researchers who focus on Polish-Jewish relations.

Is the Ulma family working for the good of PiS?

According to Prof. Machcewicz, the issue is not about “eliminating Ulmas”, but about the inauguration of the person concerned, according to him, intended to falsify history in the name of implementing the historical policy of the Mateusz Morawiecki government. So Machcewicz may have a grudge against Blessed Ulmas that they gave their lives for the Jews so that Jarosław Kaczyński could roast his politics eighty years later. Absurd.

Machcewicz, of course, leveled ritual accusations at his Polish community of passivity in the face of the Holocaust and even… complicity in it.

And not only because of the false information intended to exaggerate our heroism, that only in occupied Poland there was a death penalty for helping Jews and that Poles could have saved more than 100,000 Jews. This last number comes from Moczarów propaganda in the 1960s, and in fact – according to the most reliable findings – no more than 30,000 people survived the war in occupied Poland. Jews

– he wrote.

Historians estimate that only a handful of Poles rescued Jews during the German occupation, but – he says – it cannot be denied that the vast majority of Polish society displayed hateful and violent anti-Jewish attitudes.

The core of PiS’s historical policy is to deny this bitter truth, and this is achieved, among other things, by slandering and intimidating researchers who deal with Polish-Jewish relations.

– said Prof. Machcewicz.

Politics

Machcewicz was also angry that Michał Szułdrzyński described him as a historian who was “behind the current government”, assuring that he held no political function and had no such intentions. More interestingly, however, two sentences later, in a real political analysis, he mused about what the political scene in Poland would be like.

It is not only in Poland that the centrist liberals are trying to adopt the rhetoric and parts of the right-wing populist program. Will this help win over PiS voters and does the Prime Minister, unlike historians, really have a “social ear”, as Szułdrzyński writes? This will only become clear in the upcoming elections. While there is no indication yet of a shift in voters towards the winning party in October 2023, the European elections suggest otherwise.

– wrote Prof. Machcewicz.

He also stated, among other things, that Donald Tusk came to power in Poland because history and historical policies were allegedly “politicized”.

READ ALSO:

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– ONLY HERE. Nawrocki commented on the actions of the MIIWŚ management: Fear of Tusk makes them not know what to do

— Extraordinary session of the Pomeranian regional council on the World War II Museum. Nitek-Płażyńska to prof. Wnuka: Which civilization do you come from?

– This is a must see! It’s amazing what they did to Captain Pilecki at the World War II Museum in Gdańsk. Microscopic exposure

maz/”Rzeczpospolita”