The Historiography of the Holocaust

450 Florin Lobont
‘Scientific’ arguments in support of outright negationism also come from
non-political and academic publications, such as those of the historians Dariusz
Ratajczack – a supporter of the ‘Auschwitz lie’ theory – and Ryszard Bender,
former senator and chairman of the Polish State Council on Radio and Television.
Although the former was investigated for his standpoint and lost his job, he
was never short of offers of good posts within Polish academia. 41
Deflective negationism
Another type of Holocaust denial – it is important to note that these categories
overlap – is termed by Shafir ‘deflective negationism’. One of its main features,
making it less marginal and thus more penetrating and dangerous than radical,
outright negationism, is its insidious, non-straightforward character. A predominantly
defensive and particularistic attitude, deflective negationism refrains
from denying the Holocaust, preferring to transfer the responsibility for its
atrocities to members of other nations (usually historic national enemies,
either external or internal) and/or reduces own-nation participation in the
crimes to insignificant ‘aberrations’. It is ‘a specific form of the more general
“externalisation of guilt” syndrome’, a ‘phenomenon with deep social and psychological
roots, which crosses national boundaries’. Among the most powerful
drives towards guilt externalization, antisemitism has most often taken the
lion’s share. And although its twisted ‘logic’ should render it suspect, it is in fact
very widespread across east-central Europe, from political discourse (practically
penetrating almost all colours of the political spectrum) to the media and
historiography, and involves a good deal of ‘Holocaust minimization’. 42
The most ‘natural’ deflective negationism is that which casts the entire blame
onto the Germans. Another version of it deflects the guilt to the allegedly insignificant,
aberrant elements within one’s own nation. But the most astonishing
type of deflectionism makes the Jews themselves responsible for the Holocaust.
Due to the deeply selective character of collective memory, and the distressing
character of a negative past affecting the shaky self-image and self-identity of
majority national communities, a proposed vision of the past that obliterates
negative aspects is often eagerly welcomed. Besides, a strong victimization
complex dominates the collective imaginary in most countries of the region,
making it an even easier prey to conspiracy theories and distortions of historical
reality.
Poland is at the forefront of this process, all distortions leading to a widespread
self-depiction of the Polish ethnic community as the main victim of the
Holocaust, a portrayal supported by the myth of historical tolerance of the Jews
in Poland. This myth attempts to render silent those disturbing memories or
voices (such as the academic Jan Blonski’s, who asked the Poles to ‘stop pleading
innocent about the Holocaust’ 43 ) that talk of indifference or sheer complicity