Historian defiant on Polish atrocities

An American historian has come under fire for his account of anti-Semitic atrocities in postwar Poland.

Warsaw prosecutors said last week they might press defamation charges against Jan Tomasz Gross over his recent book “Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz,” which details attacks on Jews by fellow Poles in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Nazi Germany.

Gross said in an interview published Tuesday that he does not expect to be indicted but is ready for a legal battle.

“If they will take me to court, I will bring witnesses, Jews and Poles, to say exactly what happened after the war,” Gross told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz. “It will be a big scandal.”