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WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — Polish historians defended an academic against charges that his Holocaust research falsifies the history of Poland.

Historians from the Polish Center for Holocaust Research criticized the Polish League Against Defamation for publishing a letter signed by 134 scientists and others condemning Jan Grabowski’s works describing Polish participation in crimes committed by the Germans during World War II.

Grabowski, the son of a Holocaust survivor, is a Holocaust history professor at the University of Ottawa and co-founder of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research.

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In a statement, the Polish League Against Defamation called it “disturbing” that Grabowski’s book “Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland” was honored in 2014 with an award from Yad Vashem, “with which the author remains in close contact.”

The Polish Center’s letter was signed by seven historians who said they are ready “to engage in a scholarly debate with competent historians.”

“None of the 134 signatories is a Holocaust historian,” the center stated. “All these economists, linguists, oncologists, chemists, nuclear physicists, engineers, constructors of electromechanical appliances, environmental geologists, ethnomusicologists, theatrologists and priest professors present themselves as Holocaust experts, but cannot even quote the sources they refer to.”

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