Polish Academic Under Attack by Right-Wing Nationalist Government

Dariusz Stola, the internationally acclaimed director of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw has been forced to step aside after a standoff with Poland’s right-wing nationalist government after the museum highlighted anti-Semitism in Poland’s history.   The ruling Law and Justice party is especially sensitive to history involving World War II and the Holocaust, maintaining that Poland receives unfair blame for Nazi atrocities.

The museum’s relationship with the government began to sour two years ago, when Stola came under pressure from Law and Justice’s Minister of Culture.  Stola says he drew some ire for refusing to transfer foreign donor funding to the culture ministry for a different museum, but the conflict escalated when he spoke out against the law that made accusing Poland of complicity in the Holocaust illegal and punishable by jail time.  Stola and Piotr Wiślicki, a leader at Poland’s Jewish Historical Institute, joined in an international outcry that criticized the law as censorship of history.

In Poland and other countries ruled by nationalist governments, far-right political parties are increasingly attempting to twist history to fit into their own narratives. And they’re going after cultural and educational institutions to do it.

Since it came to power after Poland’s 2015 election, Law and Justice has hollowed out media independence and thrown the rule of law into crisis by attempting to control the country’s judiciary. But it has also begun a pernicious campaign to alter historical memory, including targeting museums that challenge its nationalist narrative. The party is especially sensitive to issues involving World War II and the Holocaust, arguing that Poland receives unfair blame for Nazi atrocities.

“We have a government which has an obsession with history,” Stola told reporters. “They invest a lot in rewriting history, in inventing new heroes or destroying old heroes.”

Poland’s attack on Stola is part of a wider trend of far-right and nationalist governments waging a culture war against academic and historical institutions around the world. Governments have presented these policies as a way to take back control from so-called liberal elites or putting a stop to inaccurate information, but in practice they consolidate historical memory in the hands of the ruling party.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán praised the country’s anti-Semitic WWII-era leader and chased out a well-regarded liberal university. The government has passed laws to tighten control over theaters and cultural institutions, rewritten textbooks and banned gender studies. It also tried to put a pro-government historian in charge of a controversial Holocaust museum, resulting in widespread concern that the institution would whitewash the country’s role in the genocide. Meanwhile, Italy’s powerful far-right Lega Party proposed building a new museum in a former headquarters of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist party.

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro dismantled the Ministry of Culture, ordered the commemoration of the country’s 1964 military coup and defunded arts programs. Brazil’s Culture Secretary Roberto Alvim vowed earlier this year to launch an initiative to fund nationalist and religious art, although Alvim ended up losing his job after reporters found his remarks closely copied a 1933 speech from Nazi propagandist Joeseph Goebbels.