Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust, by Jan Grabowski and Shira Klein. 2023. Journal of Holocaust Studies 36(4)1-58 (online)
Reviewed by Jan Peczkis
This extensive article focuses on the “revisionist” and “distorted” portrayal of the Holocaust that is allegedly pushed on Wikipedia by those big, bad Polish nationalists. How dare anyone challenge any aspect of Holocaust orthodoxy! Here is the source:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939?src=
Author Grabowski also details the work of Jewish activists that desperately try to silence the Polish voice. This includes Icewhiz (Ice Whiz), who has circumvented getting banned by using multiple sock puppet accounts. (p. 55).
RESTRICTING THE FLOW OF INFORMATION ON JEWISH-RELATED MATTERS
It is most interesting that two of the three most contested subjects on Wikipedia revolve around the Jews and their narratives. Grabowski makes these eye-opening statements,
“Many editors have tried to counter the revisionist group over the years, only to face a monumental struggle. Indeed, this topic area has become one of the most contested topics in all of Wikipedia. It is one of only three content areas on which the Arbitration Committee – the highest authority of administrators, elected by the community from among Wikipedia’s most experienced editors – has placed a special set of restrictions on the entire topic, the other two being India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine.” (p. 40).
Now tell me that Jewish influence does not exist. And who needs conspiracy theories when it is out in the open? Note that both Poles and Palestinians are the recipients of heavy-handed Jewish acts, so perhaps Poles and Palestinians should unite in order to fight the Jewish censorship that stifles both peoples.
But why the censorship? Grabowski (p. 2) realizes that Wikipedia is not a credible site used by scholars but notes that it is widely read. (pp. 2-3). This makes thought control all the more important. We just cannot let the unwashed masses think for themselves, especially when it comes to the sacrosanct Holocaust.
The Wikipedia censorship is no isolated event. It must be put in the broader context of the thought control related to the Holocaust that has noticeably increased in recent years. We see renewed attention to the bogeyman of Holocaust denial, and this has been expanded by their newly invented rhetorical cousins: “Holocaust distortion”, “Holocaust obfuscation”, “Holocaust inversion”, and “Holocaust trivialization”. Of course, no other genocide gets this consideration. The expansive imagination of the Holocaust establishment is astonishing!
WIKIPEDIA DOES CENSORSHIP: TARGETED POLISH SCHOLARS
The following Polish scholars are demonized by Grabowski and are in the crosshairs of Wikipedia censorship: Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Leszek Zebrowski, Mark Paul, Mariusz Bechta, Peter Stachura, Wojciech Muszynski, Jan Zaryn, Ewa Kurek, Tadeusz Piotrowski, Richard C. Lukas, and others. You can look up these scholars on my website and form your own opinion about them. Everyone has a right to disagree with some or all of these scholars, but no one has the right to silence them. They have just as much a right to be heard, and to be as accessible to the public reader on Wikipedia, as do all other scholars.
PLAYING WITH THE NUMBERS OF PHD’S
Grabowski zeroes-in on the Chodakiewicz’ Golden Harvest or Hearts of Gold (pp. 24-25), and lamely tries to discredit this work by doing a war dance about the fact that “only” seven of its authors are PhDs. So, what magic number of PhD’s must a book have before Grabowski and other censors stop objecting?
It is no secret that Jews dominate academia, and that there are many more Jewish Ph.D.’s than Polish PhD’s. So, the citing of “few” Polish PhD’s, as a putative ground for discrediting a book, itself smacks of Jewish elitism. It effectively creates a “might makes right” situation, in that Jews can always marshal more PhD’s to support their position than Poles can do for theirs. It is not a level playing field! This inequity becomes more pronounced whenever the dominant group (Jews) actively uses censorship to further silence a marginalized group (the Poles).
THE HUE AND CRY ABOUT REFEREED LITERATURE
Grabowski extols “rigorous and blind peer-review”. (p. 24). Let’s take a closer look at this. What if the referees think very much alike, and effectively form a Judeocentric echo chamber? This, by its very nature, chills dissent, and monopolizes a particular narrative about the Holocaust–usually an anti-Polish one–exactly as intended. Thanks to the Wikipedia censorship, and as planned, this is all that the unsuspecting reader gets to see.
And just what kind of “reliable sources” does Grabowski so earnestly believe in? He cites a Gazeta Wyborcza article in order to try to “discredit” Leszek Zebrowski. (p. 13). Please try not to laugh.
Ironically, Grabowski’s tireless complaints about distortions and unsupported statements all beg the question about the same in conventional Holocaust-approved materials! For example, what kind of referees allowed for the publication, and acclamation, of Kosinski’s Painted Bird and of Wilkomirski’s Fragments? Only belatedly were they found to be fraudulent. What kind of reputable publisher (Princeton University Press) first agreed to publish Jan T. Gross Neighbors trash? Pointedly, what kind of editorial standards allow Grabowski to continue to peddle his totally unsupported self-serving voodoo number of 200,000 fugitive Jews in German-occupied Poland? See:
It stands to reason that the standards for accuracy of Holocaust materials that are aimed at impressionable children should be even stricter than those that are aimed at adults. So exactly what kind of standards against distortion are there in force that allow MAUS to populate the classroom–along with its palpable falsehoods of Poles giving the Heil Hitler! salute and of being well-fed German-serving pigs?
RHETORICAL DEVICES FOR EXCLUDING NON-JUDEOCENTRIC VIEWPOINTS
The creativity of the Holocaust gatekeeper censors is a sight to behold, and there is an endless variety of pretexts available for delegitimizing any unwelcome scholar. He/she can be delegitimized just because the work is “self-published” (p. 7), or because it is pronounced “widely discredited” (p. 7)(“widely discredited”–if so–by whom? By the self-serving Holocaust establishment, of course).
In fact, an unwelcome viewpoint can be removed from Wikipedia almost at will–by being called an “unreliable” source, or, failing that, a “fringe” source (or “fringe” academic: p. 37, 43), or even a “non-mainstream” source. Grabowski extolls “mainstream Holocaust views” (p. 47), as if “mainstream” was necessarily synonymous with fairness and objectivity. Additionally, this does not factor the Judeocentrism that is baked-in right into mainstream Holocaust thinking.
Get this: A non-conformist viewpoint can even be rejected for having a POV (point of view) bias, which is doubly ironic and self-serving, as “POV bias” is an exceedingly subjective construct, and much the same criticisms could be said about most standard Holocaust-related messaging that is accepted in Wikipedia without question.
THE FARCE OF DELEGITIMIZING DISSENTING SCHOLARS: AN EXAMPLE
The central irony of Grabowski’s incessant complaints about the need for “qualified scholars” and “qualified sources” is the fact that most of the claims of independent-thinking Polish scholars, which he conveniently and summarily dismisses, can be reconstructed by using only “credible” sources! For example, I have verified the central arguments of independent-thinker Ewa Kurek (pp. 27-28) solely by using primary sources and other “mainstream” information. To see this for yourself, please go my website, and type-in the phrase “Ewa Kurek Correct” into the search box located on the top-right of the home page, and it will bring up my reviews of these “credible” sources that support Kurek’s conclusions.
TAKING CHEAP SHOTS AT INDEPENDENT-THINKING POLISH SCHOLARS
Failing everything else, Grabowski resorts to innuendo and ad hominem attacks against scholars not to his liking. He tries to delegitimize historian Marek Jan Chodakiewicz based on his views on homosexuality (pp. 25-26)–as if one’s position on LGBT has anything to do with one’s qualifications to speak authoritatively on Holocaust-related matters.
Even better, Grabowski gets all excited about Wojciech Muszynski and his decades-old sketch of then-candidate Obama’s head in a hangman’s noose. (pp. 30-31). Grabowski conveniently disregards the fact that effigies and hangman’s nooses are a common form of political speech, and, besides this, they have absolutely nothing to do with one’s qualifications regarding Holocaust-related matters.
Grabowski’s character-assassination tactic is reminiscent of Communist leader Beria and his quip: “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Were we to take Grabowski seriously, we would ask how many “respectable” Holocaust scholars we could delegitimize if we performed a fishing expedition and dredged-up something objectionable about their past statements.
Grabowski says that Ewa Kurek has “a reputation as a Holocaust denier” (p. 28). Sounds like Grabowski has no integrity.
THOSE PESKY GERMAN BULLET SHELLS AT JEDWABNE
Grabowski makes the juvenile argument that there “is no evidence of any Jews having been killed with bullets” at Jedwabne. (p. 29). What does Grabowski want–The Jewish skeletons wearing badges verifying their deaths as the outcome of German bullets?
Evidently, Grabowski wants us to believe that the Germans at Jedwabne just shot their guns for no reason. They were wasting bullets in a time of war. Let us help Grabowski use his imagination. Perhaps the Germans were bored with just standing around and watching the Poles slay Jews (as per Jan T. Gross) and felt a sudden need to make some noise with their guns in order to liven things up.
Grabowski’s statement is not only laughable. It is cynical–in view of the fact that the Holocaust establishment is blocking a proper exhumation at Jedwabne, which is exactly what is needed to show the remaining full effects of firearms in the Jedwabne massacre.
HOLOCAUST SUPREMACY ON STEROIDS
Keeping the Jews’ Holocaust elevated above Polish suffering is really what it is all about. Grabowski does not even bother to be subtle about it.
He has a conniption about the use of the term Polocaust (Polokaust)(p. 52) because it indicates that Polish victimhood equals Jewish victimhood. Exactly right! So sorry, Grabowski. There are no Master Genocides just as there are no Master Races. There are no valid victim hierarchies. As for using the term Polokaust, I myself plead guilty, and will continue to use this term, if only to call attention to the unfair Jewish monopolization of the term Holocaust.
Jan Grabowski’s fulminations are also directed at historian Chodakiewicz, whose Between Nazis and Soviets clearly shows that Poles and Jews killed each other. (p. 24). This flies in the face of the everlasting “Jews can do no wrong” paradigm, and Grabowski quotes Laurence Weinbaum, who laments that Chodakiewicz and like-minded scholars ‘are hard at work explaining why the murdered–not the murderers–are guilty.’ (p. 24). Evidently, a Jew cannot be a murderer: Only a Pole can be. This goes deeper. The death of a Pole at the hands of a Jew is not as significant as the death of a Jew at the hands of a Pole. This smacks of Talmudic-style racism.
WIKIPEDIA DOES CENSORSHIP: ZYDOKOMUNA DENIALISM YET AGAIN
Predictably, Grabowski tries to wish away the Zydokomuna, and, in doing so, shoots himself in the foot. He tells us that there could not possibly have been a Zydokomuna because so many Jews were deported to Siberia (p. 32)–as if the two were mutually exclusive. In bringing this up, he inadvertently demolishes the chief exculpatory argument for Jews supporting Communism–that of Jews reacting against Polish antisemitism. Now Grabowski tacitly admits that Jews knowingly served Communism all the while having no problem with Communist antisemitism.
Grabowski tells us that Jewish Communists identified themselves according to class differences (p. 15)–as if they magically shed their Jewishness merely by identifying in terms of class rather than by ethnicity or religion. Grabowski assures us that Jewish Communists did not operate according to any “Jewish agenda”. (p. 15) (as if Grabowski was a mind-reader). Surely the Jewish Communists were well aware of the fact that they had sought and had obtained much influence and power. What if that, even by itself, was the “Jewish agenda”?
POLES WHO DIED ATTEMPTING TO RESCUE JEWS: NEVER ENOUGH
Jan Grabowski goes on and on about how Poles are “exaggerating” (if so, ever heard of hyperbole?) the number of Poles killed by Germans for helping Jews. (p. 8). What would it even matter if Grabowski was correct this time? Would Jews suddenly start appreciating Polish sacrifices if the number of Poles killed on behalf of Jews was 1,000? Or 10,000? Or even 50,000?
