Perspective: It’s time to do away with laws enforcing triumphal national histories
Polish Americans in Manhattan last month protest a House bill that supports Holocaust victims and their families in the process of restitution and recovery of property. Under the bill, the State Department would report on the progress of Poland and other European countries regarding the return of property confiscated during World War II. Many Polish nationalists see the bill as a threat.
Similar to a 2018 Polish law that penalizes statements “in public and against the facts, ascribing to the Polish Nation or the Polish State responsibility or co-responsibility for Nazi crimes,” the event was the latest attempt to erase complex or negative aspects of Polish history. By attempting to shut down debate about Polish participation in the Holocaust, these right-wing Polish nationalists aim to reinforce a narrative in which Poles feature only as heroes and victims.
Poland has struggled to confront this history of Nazi collaboration, just as other countries across Europe have. The issue has been most fraught in Eastern Europe. Hungary and Romania actually joined the Axis and cooperated with the Holocaust. In countries occupied by the Soviet Union before 1941 — Ukraine, the Baltic States — many anti-Semitic nationalists initially welcomed the invading Germans as liberators, and some actively participated in the murder of Jews.
Consider Ukraine. In 2015, it passed a package of memory laws that concentrated on Communist crimes and protected the reputation of Ukrainian nationalists. In particular, “insulting” the memory of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its armed branch, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army , both of which fought the Soviets for Ukrainian independence during World War II, now carry criminal penalties.
But as in Poland, right-wing nationalists aim to use memory legislation to enforce a history that replaces tragedy and complexity with a simple tale of Ukrainian victimization, evil foreign oppressors and glorious freedom fighters.
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