Statement on the trial of historians in Poland

The Leo Baeck Institute and its partner organizations in the Center for Jewish History – The American Jewish Historical Society, The American Sephardi Federation, Yeshiva University Museum, and The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research – protest the recent trial in Poland of the eminent scholars, Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski. This trial is the most visible outcome of recent measures undertaken by some Polish authorities to suppress scholarly inquiry and threatens to exert a chilling effect on future research and publication in Poland. All who believe that independent, unbiased scholarship is an essential element of a free society should be alarmed at this troubling assault on academic freedom.