The media reports: “On Monday, the Institute of National Memory reported the initiation of an investigation against Braun. The decision was made after designation of the notifications submitted by Lewicy MP Ann Maria Żukowska, manager of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Piotr Cywiński and Bartosz Staszewski, LGBT activist and president of the Bast Foundation, as well as analysis of materials from the Warsaw Śródmieście territory Prosecutor's Office – North in Warsaw".
"By order of 14 July 2025, the territory lawyer of the Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Krakow initiated an investigation into the public case and contrary to the facts of the denial by Mr Grzegorz Braun on 10 July 2025 in Jedwabne, during a radio interview on the radio «Innet», the crimes of genocide committed between 1941 and 1944 by the officers of the 3rd German Reich in the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Auschwitz", says the statement.
That's my opinion. First, the effort to penalize any statements made by historical experts is simply a way to nowhere. Why? due to the fact that the adoption of specified regulations, whether in a case, like here or others, may lead to a question of the basic constitutional principle, or freedom of speech. This may apply to any historical event. The IPN, which now stands in the first line and "insight", wanted to penalize the usage of the word "Polish extermination camps", but under force of Israel rapidly withdrew from it. Ukraine has introduced legal protection of the CNS-UPA, and what we consider to be the fact about its crimes is being prosecuted in them. If specified regulations were to apply worldwide, any exchange of historical tasks would be impossible.
The law that has been in place for decades gives the anticipation of judicial investigation to persons or institutions (States) who consider that they are defamed or disputed, although it is besides questionable whether courts can regulation on historical matters. At 1 time, the Polish court dealing with the charge of martial law ruled that at the end of 1981... there was no threat of russian intervention! So, I guess the only good thing to do is simply to argue or object to individual who we do not like. Or just silence.
Secondly, they're back to this case. In both cases (Sedwabne, Auschwitz) there were no opinions that there was no genocide or murder. In the case of Jedwabny, there were statements that Germans and not Poles were liable for the murders, not that nothing happened. But this is simply a fundamental difference. The same can be said of the second case, although the author of the contested message did not make the subject, but that the gas chambers in Auschwitz “is a Facebook”. However, there was no word that genocide did not happen there. So both charges from this point of view are missed and no IPN investigation will bring anything here. Nota bene, Grzegorz Braun himself, on 9 August 2024, wrote clearly in an entry on the anniversary of the execution of Edith Stein by the Germans that she "died in the gas chamber" (in Auschwitz-Birkenau KL camp).
Thirdly, I personally consider taking this subject by the leader of the Confederation of the Polish Crown to be incomprehensible and intellectually hard to defend. As 1 of our readers reminded us, 10 years ago in our pages Bohdan Piętka, an worker of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, and then besides our publicist – the various opinions of Grzegorz Braun as undocumented and false speculations and inventions ("Low flights by Grzegorz Braun") were challenged. It turns out that despite all these years gone, this case has returned again. Cui bono? I don't know. The full “progress” and related camp has already begun to attack. possibly that's it. However, I would alternatively face this camp in another field. erstwhile Mrs Barbara Nowacka said that "KL Auschwitz was built by Polish Nazis" someway there were no lawsuits and outrages of those who now willingly went on to fight. They moved due to the fact that they got an excuse.
Jan Engelgard
