“A lasting reconciliation can only be built on the basis of historical truth”—Historian Karol Polejowski

Dr. Karol Polejowski is a medieval historian who currently serves as the Chairman of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). He began his museum career in 2016 at the Malbork Castle Museum and later joined the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk. The author of numerous works on medieval and World War II-era Polish history, Dr. Polejowski has been honored with the Silver Medal “Meritorious for Polish Science Sapientia et Veritas,” the “Commemorative Cross of the Indomitable Soldiers 1944–1963,” and the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

During the ceremony held in Westerplatte on the occasion of the 86th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, your predecessor and Poland’s current president, Karol Nawrocki, once again brought up the issue of reparations for the German occupation. What is the status of claims against Germany?

The resolution of the Sejm of September 14, 2022, passed, importantly, almost unanimously, reads that “the Republic of Poland never received compensation for human and material losses caused by the German state” between 1939 and 1945. It should be added that these are the consequences, still felt today, of an unimaginable hecatomb. According to the report presented on September 1, 2022, at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the value of the human and material losses of Poland by Germany during World War II amounts to more than 6.2 billion zlotych (currently almost 1.5 billion euros). The three-volume study on this subject is the result of several years of hard work involving, among others, historians from the Institute of National Remembrance.

In autumn 2022, still under the government of the United Right Coalition, the Polish Foreign Ministry sent a note of reparation to the authorities in Berlin. The German government formally replied that it considered the matter closed and had no intention of entering into negotiations. This by no means closes the issue. On September 1 this year, in Westerplatte, President Karol Nawrocki clearly reiterated that, for the sake of our common future, “we must settle once and for all the issue of German state reparations,” as without this, it is difficult to build a true partnership with our western neighbor.

A campaign has appeared in social networks criticizing Poland for demanding reparations from Germany and not from Russia. What is the situation in relation to Russia?

In the resolution of 2022, we also mentioned that “Poland has so far not received adequate financial compensation and indemnification for the material and immaterial losses suffered by the Polish state during World War II as a result of the aggression of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” The War Losses Institute, created at the end of 2021, was to prepare a report also on these losses. However, in the last two years, this institution has been inactive, and for a long time, it has not even had a director. As of today, we do not have any documents that could justify the request to the authorities of the Russian Federation for the above-mentioned “financial compensation and reparation.” Another issue is that Russia has not yet been held accountable for the criminal legacy of communism. On the contrary, in many respects it continues the traditions of the Soviet Union, including imperial ones.

Given the rehabilitation of the figure of Stalin in Russia, do you think that places like the Katyn cemetery are in danger? 

The Katyn massacre, i.e., the murder by the NKVD [Soviet’s interior ministry and Stalin’s secret police] in the spring of 1940 of almost 22,000 Polish citizens, remains today an unhealed wound in the Polish collective memory. In August, disturbing news reached us from the Russian Interfax agency, according to which the Smolensk Regional Duma plans to remove architectural elements depicting Polish military decorations from the cemetery of the victims of the NKVD crime in Katyn, as was done earlier in Mednoye. The Institute of National Remembrance immediately issued a statement of protest. In it, we called for refraining from “actions unbecoming of civilized nations.” For, as we wrote elsewhere in the same document, “any country that wishes to call itself civilized must treat burial places as sacred and untouchable.”

Another controversy arose in connection with the exhibition ‘Nasi chłopcy’ (Our Boys) at the Gdańsk Museum. What does this exhibition show, and what is the historical truth about the recruitment of Pomeranians for the army of the Third Reich?

This exhibition has significant narrative gaps and gives the impression that it is more in line with German historical policy than Polish. Visitors see pictures of smiling boys in uniforms of German military formations, but they do not know the whole context of the German occupation of Pomerania between 1939 and 1945. However, from the very first days, this occupation was extremely bloody, even compared to other Polish lands incorporated into the Reich (not for nothing have historians coined the term “Pomeranian crime”). Only in this context can the question of the forced enrollment of Poles in the Volksliste and their conscription into the Wehrmacht be rigorously analyzed. Incidentally, Poles conscripted into the Wehrmacht later joined the ranks of the Polish Armed Forces en masse as a result of desertion or their surrender to Allied captivity.

At the moment, there is more and more talk about the unresolved issue of the Volhynia massacre and the need to exhume the victims. What is the IPN’s position on this? Is there any collaboration with the Ukrainian authorities regarding the exhumations?

For now, it is difficult to speak of a turning point. The recent exhumations in Puźniki are cause for rejoicing, but even there we are only halfway there, as so far only a part of the remains of the crimes of February 1945 have been found. And let us remember that in Volhynia alone, as a result of the genocidal purge carried out by Ukrainian nationalists in the 1940s, about 1500 localities inhabited by Poles disappeared from the map. The Institute of National Remembrance constantly repeats: “The victims do not cry out for revenge, but for remembrance.” We simply want to find and give a dignified burial to our compatriots, which is a fundamental issue not only from a religious but also from a civilizational point of view. The Ukrainian authorities are still waiting to process 26 applications submitted by the IPN. We sincerely hope that the resolution of this matter will be expedited.

Do you think this is the right time to resolve these issues? How do you think Polish-Ukrainian relations should be built?

A lasting reconciliation can only be built on the basis of historical truth. The argument that it is not a good time was heard long before the Russian aggression in Ukraine. However, one can reverse it and say that, on the contrary, the common threat of Russian imperialism should motivate us even more to come to an agreement.

The current government of Donald Tusk also seems to have problems with Poland’s history. What do you think of the actions and famous lapses of Education Minister Barbara Nowacka, such as her reference to Polish Nazis?

The resounding statements about “Polish Nazis” who “built the camps” were really very unfortunate, especially in the context of increasingly bold attempts by some foreign authors to attribute co-responsibility for the Holocaust to Poles. At the time, the Institute of National Remembrance also spoke critically about the changes proposed by the Ministry of National Education in the history curriculum, arguing that they considerably impoverish the historical knowledge to be acquired by students, for example, in such areas as the role of Christianity in the history of Poland and Western civilization. However, without understanding the past, especially the most recent past, it is impossible to understand today’s world.