Unjust Historical Revisionism

Following up on the last post, this post should provide some background into why we are witnessing such revisionist history still.

History is shaped not only by what happened but also by who was allowed to speak and who had the power to shape the narrative.

This is why Poland, one of the nations that suffered most under German occupation, gradually became misrepresented in Western memory, while Germany, the actual perpetrator of the destruction, managed within a generation to rehabilitate itself and regain respectability. The injustice lies not only in the wartime atrocities but also in the postwar rewriting of the moral landscape.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Poles, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were marked for destruction. Teachers, priests, intellectuals, community leaders, and ordinary families were executed or deported. Poland lost six million citizens, half of them Jews, half ethnic Poles.

Yet after the war, Poland entered another prison. The Soviet Union swallowed the country, silencing it behind censorship, propaganda, and complete political isolation. For nearly half a century Poles could not publish freely, speak openly to the West, or defend their history.

Their resistance movement, their rescue efforts, and their suffering were largely unknown outside their own borders. They were literally silenced from sharing about their exceptional role and had no way to really respond to false accusations

At the same time West Germany took a very different path. The Cold War began almost immediately, and the United States and Western Europe needed a strong, trustworthy Germany as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Political necessity demanded reconciliation, and reconciliation required narrative softening. In 1952 West Germany and Israel signed the Luxembourg Agreement, through which Germany provided billions of marks in reparations, industrial goods, and economic support. This financial aid helped Israel survive its early years, and in return West Germany received something it desperately wanted: an opportunity to re-enter the family of Western nations with its reputation gradually restored.

This political alignment came with a shift in language. Instead of “Germans,” Western discourse increasingly emphasized “Nazis,” as if the crimes had been the work of a ghost-like ideological force rather than a nation and its institutions. This rhetorical strategy allowed Germans to define themselves as victims of the Nazis rather than as the people who empowered them. With time the perpetrator became abstract, and the historical record became sanitized.

Meanwhile, because Poland could not speak for itself, an enormous vacuum opened in Western understanding of the war in Eastern Europe. Communist censorship erased the story of the Polish Underground State, the Home Army, Żegota, and the countless Poles who risked death to save Jews.

Western intellectuals, journalists, and filmmakers filled the silence with secondhand assumptions, myths, and stereotypes. Poland was portrayed as backward, antisemitic, and complicit, even though the historical reality shows Poles were among the most persecuted peoples under German occupation and among the most actively resistant.

Over time an absurd reversal took place. Germans increasingly appeared as victims of Nazism, while Poles, the victims of both German and Soviet terror, became convenient scapegoats. The world was taught to feel sympathy for Germany’s suffering, while Poland’s suffering was minimized or ignored. The crimes committed by Germans on occupied Polish soil were subtly re-framed as “things that happened in Poland,” rather than what they were: the deliberate acts of the German state.

The tragedy is that many Poles died trying to save Jews, yet their bravery was buried behind the Iron Curtain and their sacrifice was overshadowed by narratives shaped in capitals where Poland had no influence. It was easier for the world to soften the image of Germany and to project lingering blame onto a powerless nation that could not defend itself. Those distortions still shape public memory today.

This is why so many people have the completely wrong impression about Poland during the war, why they believe myths about “Polish guards” or “Polish camps,” and why institutions sometimes use ambiguous language that blurs German responsibility. Hopefully this clears up why you see what you see.

Edward Reid

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