Holocaust de-Judaization: A New Form of Holocaust Denial
Guest speaker: Professor Jan Grabowski , with Peter Jassem
Holocaust de-Judaization minimizes or erases the fact that Jews were its primary, targeted victims — folding their genocide into a generic “humanity" narrative, inflating other groups' suffering to equal status, or recasting Jews as perpetrators rather than victims.
It obscures the Holocaust's specifically antisemitic logic and the unique, near-total destruction of European Jewry. Learn about the dramatic growth of this phenomenon, which has recently become one of the main threats to the memory of the Shoah.
This event, held in honour of Holocaust Education Week, is presented in partnership with University of Toronto Press.
Following the event, purchase signed copies of Jan Grabowski’s Whitewash: Poland and the Jews .
Join us in the Al Green Theatre, on Zoom simulcast, or register to receive the recording
Thursday November 5
1:00-2:30pm
Al Green Theatre
Admission: $12
For registration assistance, please call 416-924-6211 x0 or email help@mnjcc.org .
For more information, contact Lisa Roy at 416-924-6211 x6155 or email lisar@mnjcc.org .
Jan Grabowski is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Ottawa, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a doctor honoris causa at Lund University, Sweden. His interests focus on the Holocaust in Poland and, more specifically, on the relations between Jews and Poles during the war. He has authored/co-authored or edited twenty books and published more than eighty articles in learned journals in many languages. Professor Grabowski’s book: Hunt for the Jews. Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland has been awarded the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for 2014. In 2018 he co-edited and co-authored Dalej jest noc (Night Without End), a two-volume study of the fate of the Jews in selected counties of occupied Poland.
The book triggered an angry reaction of the Polish authorities and resulted in a long civil trial prepared and financed by state-funded, right-wing NGO; Polish state-owned TV and newspapers took part in an unprecedented campaign of hate which accompanied the legal proceedings. In May 2024, Grabowski published On Duty. The Role of the Polish ‘Blue’ Police in the Holocaust (Yad Vashem Presses), and in August 2024 Whitewash. Poland and the Jews appeared as a special copy of The Jewish Quarterly, and was released by University of Toronto Press in August 2025.
Peter Jassem is a Polish-born architect, former political dissident, and genealogist who immigrated to Canada in 1988. After discovering his Jewish roots, he dedicated himself to Jewish genealogy and Holocaust research. He has served on the Board of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Canada, chaired the Programming Committee of the International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, and served for 18 years on the Board of Jewish Records Indexing–Poland (JRI-Poland), helping to build one of the world's leading Jewish genealogical resources. For more than 15 years, he chaired the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada and founded the Canadian Friends of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. His current work focuses on documenting the wartime experiences of his family, Holocaust victims, and survivors, and he is writing a book on his family's history. His honours include Poland's Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit, and Canada's Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers.
Founded in 1901, University of Toronto Press is Canada’s leading scholarly publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America. With the mission to connect ideas for a better world, UTP operates three business units. The Publishing Division publishes 250 new book titles per year and 80 journals, with a backlist that includes more than 10,000 book titles and 75,000 journal articles. UTP is widely recognized internationally for its content covering a vast array of disciplines in medical and health sciences, business, law, education, political science and policy, sociology, general history, philosophy, and literature, among other areas. For more information, please visit utppublishing.com .
Price: $12.00 Taxes not included
Thursday, November 5
1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Al Green Theatre · 750 Spadina Avenue
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