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Let's not demonise historians of this or that nationaltiy. Yes, Jewish hsitorians may be prejudiced against Poles, many Polish historians are suspicious of people like Jan Gross and Bolivian historians may take none-too-kindly a view of Spanish conquistadors. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Poles idolise the AK as do Ukrainians their UPA, but Gazeta Wyborcza once depicted the AK as Jew-killers, and Poles tend to view the UPA with suspicion and resentment.
Historians are not pre-programmed robots or comptuers but flesh-and-blood human beings. As such, even though they engage in the most objective of empirical research, they ultimately may succumb to emotions and prejudices like anyone else. Having a grandfather or other ancestor once persecuted by an alien foe will more likely than not leave some residue in even the most objective researcher's psyche.
Where is Polonius and what have you done with him?
That's a great post, thank you.
On the international scene, the history of German occupation of Poland strangely is written exclusively by Jewish historians, not Polish, so it is very relevant for us that Jewish historians are prejudiced. Those historians who dare to write more from the Polish perspective rather than Jewish, are under pressure, just like Norman Davies was. Nothing can change as long as historians are afraid that writing about Holocaust in a non-Jewish-centered way may harm their careers.
The problem is that there are few Polish historians who are writing internationally from a neutral perspective - usually their politics clouds their writing.
However, Timothy Garton-Ash is a fantastic historian who writes about Poland - his book on Solidarity is well recommended.
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