April 5, 2000

Professor fired for publishing book doubting extent of Holocaust

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA,
Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland -- A Polish professor of history was fired by his university Wednesday and banned from teaching elsewhere for publishing a book suggesting Nazi Germany did not have a comprehensive plan for exterminating Jews.

The state-run University of Opole announced that Dariusz Ratajczak, 37, had violated ethical standards and would be banned from teaching at other universities for three years.

Ratajczak had been suspended from his post in Opole last year after prosecutors opened an investigation into the publication of his book, "Dangerous Themes," which includes an assertion that gas chambers at Nazi death camps were intended to kill lice on prisoners.

After Wednesday's decision by the university's disciplinary committee, Ratajczak charged the panel did not consider his explanations and said he would appeal the ruling.

"I was only presenting various views on the Holocaust to students," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Opole, some 190 miles southwest of Warsaw.

A court in Opole in December found Ratjaczak guilty of spreading revisionist views on the Holocaust.

But the court did not punish him, saying the book's limited distribution was not damaging enough to warrant punishment under a Polish law which makes it a crime to publicly deny Nazi and communist-era crimes.

The court also said Ratajczak had distanced himself from revisionist views in a preface to the second edition of the book.

Ratajczak argued that he had merely summarized opinions of historians who deny the Holocaust and that his own views are not in line with all the opinions in his book.

Ratajczak published 320 copies of the book in March 1999 at his own expense. Five were sold at the university bookstore, and the rest were sold directly to Ratajczak's students or given away to friends.

The book says 3 million Jews died in the Holocaust - not 6 million as almost all historians say - and that the Nazis had no uniform plan to exterminate Jews.

According to excerpts reprinted in newspapers, the book calls testimony from witnesses "useless" and describes researchers of Nazi crimes as "followers of the religion of Holocaust" who impose on others "a false image of the past."

Last September, Ratjaczak financed a second edition of 30,000 copies offered in kiosks and by mail order across Poland.

The publisher, a small firm in Warsaw, censored the most extreme statements, placing them in notes at the book's end. A few thousand copies have sold, Ratajczak said.