Controversy around "Inferno of Choices"
Texts, included in the book, present diverse attitudes towards Jews by Poles, both positive and extremely negative. The publication is accused of reputedly talking too much about the negative attitudes and does not provide the real picture of Polish reactions to the Holocaust. A critical articleby Cezary Grymz appeared in Rzeczpospolita which claims that the book portrays Poles as anti-Semites, and its promotion by the Ministry damages the view of Poland in the eyes of the world.
However, the publishers and authors of the texts stress that Inferno of Choices raises issues which are the subject of continuous research and a great deal of discussion. The book does not present an explicit picture of Polish attitudes towards Jews during the occupation. It is rather a mature attempt to deal with a difficult subject.
On radio station TOK-FM, co-authors of the publication, Prof. Barbara Engelking and Prof. Jan Grabowski, claimed that the Holocaust deserves to be treated as a part of Polish history and should be critically reviewed. Not only should Poles’ positive attitudes towards Jews be talked about, but the negative also, e.g. the denunciations and blackmailing. The researchers stressed that saving Jews was not the dominant phenomenon in Poland and that it is not possible to use the Righteous Among the Nations to counter the misdeeds.
