Holocaust in Poland: New Research, New Findings

Annual Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar Lecture

March 29, 2023 at 11:00 AM Pacific Time

A public lecture by Jan Grabowksi (Professor of History, University of Ottawa, Canada)
2022-2023 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence

Organized by the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research and USC Shoah Foundation

In this distinguished lecture, Professor Jan Grabowski will focus on the recent scholarship dealing with the history of the Holocaust in Poland. The new research – based on new archival evidence – brings to light the unknown aspects of the Jewish catastrophe, sheds more light on German genocidal policies, places more weight on the agency of the Jewish victims, and raises fundamental question about the attitudes of the Polish “bystanders”. Professor Grabowski will also address the issue of the reactions of the Polish state to the findings of independent historians.

Jan Grabowski is the 2022-2023 Sara and Asa Shapiro Scholar in Residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research and USC Shoah Foundation. He is Professor of History at University of Ottawa in Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has authored, co-authored, or edited 20 books and published more than 80 articles in many languages, including the award-winning Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (Indiana University Press, 2013) and the two-volume 2000-page Dalej jest noc (Night Without End) (published in Polish in 2018 and in English by Indiana University Press in 2022). Professor Grabowski has earned prizes, distinctions, and fellowships from many institutions, including Lund University (Sweden), Leiden University (Netherlands), Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Germany), USHMM (US), and Yad Vashem (Israel). In December 2022, he was awarded the the 2022 Canadian SSHRC Impact Award for research. Read more about Jan Grabowski here.

Lecture image: Two historical photographs from Poland showing the aftermath of Jewish deportations. The one on the left depicts a major street in Krakow, strewn with bundles of items after the liquidation of the ghetto. The photo on the right is from Lublin, showing piles of items, including furniture and appliances, stolen from Jews deported to extermination camps.
Photo Credits: photo on the left: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Instytut Pamieci Narodowej; photo on the right: Męczeństwo, walka, zagłada Żydów w Polsce 1939–1945 (The Agony, Struggle and Destruction of the Jews in Poland, 1939–1945).