Poland, in Long Campaign To Deny Its Nazi-Era Complicity, Moves To Suppress Documentary on Postwar Jewish Massacres

A documentary about Jews massacred by their Polish neighbors after World War II is at risk of being banned in Poland, where officials have dismissed the film as anti-Polish propaganda. “Among Neighbors,” produced by California-based filmmaker Yoav Potash, chronicles the lesser-known tragedy of Holocaust survivors who returned to their hometowns after the war only to be murdered by their Polish neighbors. The film follows the testimony of a Polish woman who witnessed members of her community in the town of Gniewoszów slaughter five liberated Jews months after the Nazi occupation had ended.The documentary premiered at the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival in 2024 and has since screened in six countries and earned consideration for the Academy Awards. It drew renewed attention in January when it was shown across America for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.The film has met fierce opposition in Poland, where the nationalist Law and Justice party spent a decade seeking to discredit accounts of Polish complicity in the Holocaust and promote narratives of Polish victimhood. In 2018, the party passed a law barring accusations that the Polish people or government were complicit in Nazi crimes.Though Law and Justice lost power in 2023 to a centrist coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the party retains a foothold in the government through President Karol Nawrocki. Critics have accused Mr. Nawrocki of advancing Holocaust revisionism by downplaying Polish collaboration in wartime atrocities. Before his presidency, Mr. Nawrocki served as the head of Poland’s state body responsible for investigating Nazi and Communist crimes, the Institute of National Remembrance, where he prioritized fighting “all the disgusting attacks” on Poland by Holocaust survivors. The cause anchored his 2025 presidential campaign.Shortly after “Among Neighbors” aired on Poland’s public broadcaster in 2025, a senior minister in Mr. Nawrocki’s office, Agnieszka Jędrzak, condemned the film as “anti-Polish historical manipulation” and declared that “a television station with ‘Polish’ in its name should not have it on its airwaves.”Following Ms. Jędrzak’s rebuke, a right-wing Catholic thinktank, the Ordo Iuris Institute, filed a complaint with Poland’s National Broadcasting Council, arguing that the documentary “creates a false image of Poles as a nation co-responsible for the German genocide of Jews during World War II.” The council has since launched an investigation into the broadcaster, TVP, demanding materials justifying its decision to air the film.Mr. Potash tells the Sun he “wasn’t surprised” by the opposition from the government’s nationalist faction given “their previous pattern of minimizing any hint of Polish culpability in the eradication of Jewish life in Poland.” Though he says he “could not have predicted the way things unfolded,” including the direct involvement of the president’s office.In spite of the backlash, TVP has defended the film as “consistent” with its “mission” and said that it would remain on its streaming platform. “Accusations that this carefully prepared, moving documentary is anti-Polish can only be made by people who have not seen the film,” it stated in November. Mr. Potash calls the prospect of the council blocking TVP from airing the film “tragic,” saying it “signals that those with enough power in Poland can prevent the Polish people from confronting the darker parts of their own history. And that’s a shame because all societies can learn a great deal by confronting the darker parts of our own history.”Yet he notes that many Polish viewers have embraced the film. “A mainstream news outlet in Poland, as part of their coverage on this controversy, conducted a poll among their readers,” Mr. Potash tells the Sun. “About two thirds said that they were in favor of the film.”

Poland, in Long Campaign To Deny Its Nazi-Era Complicity, Moves To Suppress Documentary on Postwar Jewish Massacres

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