April 15, 2000

Polish professor to be retried in Holocaust denial case

By ANDRZEJ STYLINSKI, Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland -- An appeals court ordered a retrial Friday for a history professor who suggested in a book that Nazi Germany did not have a comprehensive plan for exterminating Jews. [Previous story]

Dariusz Ratajczak, 37, was found guilty in December by a local court of spreading revisionist views on the Holocaust. But the court refused to punish him, arguing that the book had only limited distribution and was not damaging enough.

Under Polish law, it is a crime to publicly deny Nazi and communist-era crimes, and both sides appealed the December verdict - prosecutors because they believe Ratajczak deserves punishment, and the professor because he wants an outright acquittal.

At a hearing Friday, the regional court in Opole, 190 miles southwest of Warsaw, accepted the prosecution's request, said Judge Andrzej Polanski, head of the appeals department.

"The court waived the previous verdict and passed the case to a local court for a retrial," Polanski said by telephone from Opole.

He said it was up to the local court to set the trial date. The trial will be the latest of what have become known as Holocaust denial cases. On Tuesday, British historian David Irving, who has written that the number of Jews killed by the Nazis was greatly exaggerated, lost a libel suit he brought against an American scholar who criticized Irving's work.

Last week the Opole university fired Ratajczak for what it said was a violation of ethical standards. Ratajczak also was banned from teaching at other universities for three years.

The professor argues that in his book, "Dangerous Themes," he merely summarized opinions of historians who deny the Holocaust and that his own views are not in line with opinions that appear in the work.

He 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 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 eyewitnesses "useless" and describes researchers of Nazi crimes as "followers of the religion of Holocaust" who impose on others "a false image of the past."