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Judging the Communist Past: Historians and Cultural Expertise in Polish Administrative Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2020

Stanisław Burdziej Open the ORCID record for Stanisław Burdziej [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

Since 1989, cultural expertise has emerged as a crucial factor in navigating Poland's communist past. The use of cultural expertise provided by historians was institutionalized in 1999, when the Institute of National Remembrance was created and charged with prosecuting Nazi and communist crimes, as well as assisting with the belated decommunization. Expert historians are requested by courts and other institutions to provide opinions in cases ranging from alleged collaboration with communist secret services, withdrawal of veteran status bestowed to soldiers of communist military units fighting the Polish resistance movement, awarding compensation to victims of German concentration and labour camps, to changing names of places named after prominent Party activists. Using this expertise requires the courts to understand the intricacies of recent Polish history, such as the operational methodology and archival practices of communist secret services, or the complex interplay of motives to collaborate (or not) with foreign oppressors. In this paper, the new salience of historical expertise for the Polish courts is analysed within the framework of Honneth's (1995) ‘struggle for recognition’ and Haldemann's (2008) work on the symbolic role of courts in transitional justice contexts.

Type
Forum: Cultural Expertise
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 99 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2020

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Footnotes

This paper benefitted from academic interactions and financial support from the project entitled “Cultural Expertise in Europe: What is it useful for?” (EURO-EXPERT) funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under H2020-EU Consolidator Grant (ERC grant agreement no. 681814), Principal Investigator: Livia Holden. The author also thanks Daniel Wicenty for his helpful comments.

References

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7. First, it was the database of all the so-called common courts; that is, district, regional, and appellate courts, containing approximately 280,000 decisions; second, the database of administrative courts (ca. 153,000 records); and third, the database of the Supreme Court (ca. 55,000 records) (as of January 2019).

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21. For a methodological discussion of the challenges in researching and interpreting Communist Party secret police files in Poland, see Brzechczyn, Krzysztof, “The Reliability of ‘Files’ and Collaboration with the Security Service (SB) in Poland: An Attempt at a Methodological Analysis,” Hungarian Historical Review 3 (2014): 257–84Google Scholar.

22. This law (Ustawa z dnia 1 kwietnia 2016 r. o zakazie propagowania komunizmu lub innego ustroju totalitarnego przez nazwy budowli, obiektów i urządzeń użyteczności publicznej), dated April 1, 2016, enforced the prohibition of the propagation of communism or other totalitarian regimes by names of buildings, facilities, and public utilities (amended twice—in June 2017 and December 2017, to include monuments).

23. See the list of street names subject to change published on the Institute's Web site: https://ipn.gov.pl/pl/upamietnianie/dekomunizacja/zmiany-nazw-ulic/nazwy-ulic/nazwy-do-zmiany (accessed July 10, 2019).

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25. Wiktor Ferfecki, “Dekomunizacja: Nowi patroni ulic wygodni dla PiS,” Rzeczpospolita, January 16, 2019.

26. See: IPN przygotuje ekspozycję w Muzeum Zimnej Wojny w Podborsku, June 29, 2017, http://ipn.gov.pl/pl/aktualnosci/40787,IPN-przygotuje-ekspozycje-w-Muzeum-Zimnej-Wojny-w-Podborsku-Warszawa-29-czerwca-.html (accessed July 10, 2019).

27. See Barometr Warszawski, http://www.um.warszawa.pl/sites/default/files/attach/o-warszawie/BW_XI_12.pdf (accessed July 10, 2019).

28. District court Warsaw-South, III K 794/11, August 19, 2015. See also: Znieważenie „Czterech Śpiących” i „Wdzięczności Armii Radzieckiej” prawomocnie umorzone, October 30, 2015, https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/270243-tylko-u-nas-zniewazenie-czterech-spiacych-i-wdziecznosci-armii-radzieckiej-prawomocnie-umorzone (accessed July 10, 2019).

29. For a critical discussion of the de-communization efforts after 2015, see Tomasz Stryjek, “The Hypertrophy of Polish Remembrance Policy after 2015: Trends and Outcomes,” Zoon Politikon (2019): 43–66. Stryjek argues that the intensification of efforts in the wake of the 2015 parliamentary victory of law and justice has led to a “hypertrophy” of remembrance policy, and resulted in excessive focus on martyrologic and heroic experiences.

30. Soszyńska, Renata and Leśkiewicz, Rafał, “Odbieranie przywilejów funkcjonariuszom komunistycznej bezpieki w wolnej Polsce (aspekty historyczno-prawne),” Aparat Represji w Polsce Ludowej 1944–1989 1 (2011): 79Google Scholar.

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32. Voivodship Administrative Court in Szczecin, decision no. II SA/Sz 1337/04.

33. Since 2016, apart from awarding or denying veteran status to soldiers of the underground repressed after 1944 by the Soviet and communist troops, the administrative courts have heard approximately twelve cases resulting from a 2015 law on “anti-communist opposition activists and people repressed for political reasons” (Ustawa o działaczach opozycji antykomunistycznej oraz osobach represjonowanych z powodów politycznych, Dz.U.2015.693, as of May 20, 2015). The law introduced a new status of “anti-communist opposition activist” and “a person repressed for political reasons,” defining these as “a person who during the period from January 1, 1956 to June 4, 1989, for a total of at least 12 months, conducted, within the framework of organized structures or in cooperation with them, activities punished by criminal liability, aimed at Poland's recovery of independence and sovereignty, or respect for political human rights in Poland.” The bill contains even more detailed provisions, indicating, for example, that eligibility resulted, among other criteria, from being held in custody for a minimum of 48 hours without charges, or arrested multiple times for shorter periods adding up to at least 30 days. Status holders are eligible to receive various benefits, including financial compensation. Applicants are requested to document their opposition activities themselves, and their records are verified by the IPN's archivists. In cases of doubt or missing documents, the IPN's archive obtains an opinion from the Institute's Bureau of Historical Research. See https://opozycja.ipn.gov.pl/op/ustawa/61,Ustawa.html (accessed July 10, 2019) for details of the procedure. In all of the cases, complaints against decisions denying the status have been dismissed.

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36. Voivodeship Court of Appeals in Warsaw, decision no. IV SA/Wa 2810/12.

37. “Co z zapowiadanym projektem ustawy o biegłych sądowych? RPO pyta resort sprawiedliwości,” May 21, 2018, https://www.rpo.gov.pl/pl/content/rpo-upomina-sie-o-zapowiadany-projekt-ustawy-o-bieglych-sadowych (accessed July 10, 2019).

38. The reform is supposed to centralize the system under the supervision of a reorganized Institute of Forensic Research in Krakow, require candidates for experts to obtain a special certificate validating their knowledge and skills, and introduce upper age limits for experts. See Patryk Slowik, “Wielka reforma systemu biegłych sądowych. Koniec z niezależnością ekspertów?” Gazeta Prawna, January 29, 2019, A12.

39. Honneth, Axel, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

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41. Ibid., at 678.

42. Clark, Janine Natalya, “Transitional Justice as Recognition: An Analysis of the Women's Court in Sarajevo,” International Journal of Transitional Justice 10 (2016): 67–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43. In this context, it is worth mentioning several court cases involving Jan T. Gross, the author of a book devoted to the 1941 pogrom in Jedwabne, in which between 250 and 340 Jews were massacred by a group of Poles (and not the Nazi Germans, as previously believed). See Gross, Jan T., Neighbours. The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although the investigation launched by the IPN partly confirmed Gross's account, it significantly reduced the estimates of the number of victims, and confirmed the complicity of Germans. The book sparked a heated debate in Poland, and resulted in a protracted court dispute involving one of the book's protagonists. In 2009, the Appellate Court in Warsaw found Gross not guilty of defamation, despite the fact that he had mistakenly attributed quotes to one of the men present in Jedwabne during the pogrom; see “Sąd: J.T.Gross nie musi przepraszać za książkę o Jedwabnem,” Gazeta Prawna, July 23, 2009, A5. Although Gross did amend subsequent editions of his book to account for the wrong attribution, the courts also emphasized the fact that his book contained “historical truth,” “served a publicly significant purpose,” and was “admissible under the freedom of academic research.”

44. Stola, Dariusz, “Poland's Institute of National Remembrance: A Ministry of Memory?” in The Convolutions of Historical Politics, ed. Miller, Alexei I. and Lipman, Maria (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2012), 48Google Scholar.

45. Ibid., 54. For an alternative view on the Institute, see Antoni Dudek, Instytut. Osobista historia IPN (Warszawa: Czerwone i Czarne, 2011). Although Dudek, a history professor and long-time employee of the Institute, shares Stola's criticism and advocates a separation of the IPN's research and investigation functions, his overall assessment of the Institute's first decade of existence is largely positive.

46. Miller, Alexei I. and Lipman, Maria, eds., The Convolutions of Historical Politics (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2012)Google Scholar.

47. Tomasz Zarycki, “Hipokryzja Na Peryferiach,” Nowe Peryferie, 2015, https://nowe-peryferie.pl/index.php/2015/01/hipokryzja-peryferiach-czesc (accessed July 10, 2019); and Zarycki, Tomasz, Smoczynski, Rafal, and Warczok, Tomasz, “The Roots of Polish Culture-Centered Politics: Toward a Non–Purely Cultural Model of Cultural Domination in Central and Eastern Europe,” East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures 31 (2017): 360–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. Across various polls conducted in Poland, the tenured professor has ranked either no. 1 or no. 2, just behind the firefighter; see Tomescu-Dubrow, Henryk Irina, Słomczyński, , Domański, Kazimierz M., Dubrow, Zbigniew, Sawiński, Joshua Kjerulf, and Przybysz, Dariusz, Dynamics of Class and Stratification in Poland (Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2018), 176Google Scholar. Although academic scholars tend to rank at or near the top also in many other countries, in the classical National Opinion Research Center poll conducted in the United States in 1989, “professor” ranked eleventh. In more recent polls conducted in the United States, “scientist” usually ranked very high, but natural scientists are not typically perceived as intellectuals in Polish public discourse.