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The story of Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust is an incredibly complex and difficult one. On the one hand, Poles and Jews both suffered horribly under the Nazis. On the other, however, the general climate in Poland was inhospitable to Jews and many Poles took advantage of the Nazi occupation to victimize their Jewish neighbors for a variety of reasons.

In this episode, I talked with Jan Grabowski about the history of Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust. We talked about the role of the Blue Police in hunting down and killing the Jews and we also talked about the polarizing memory battles and weaponization of this history in Poland today.

Jan Grabowski is a professor of history at the University of Ottawa. He is a renowned scholar of the Holocaust and author of several important books on the topic.

Grabowski, Jan. On Duty - The Polish Blue & Criminal Police in the Holocaust (2024)Grabowski, Jan. Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland (2022)Grabowski, Jan. Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland(2013)

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You can find a complete reading list with books by our guests and also their suggestions here.