Polish prosecutors mull pressing charges against Holocaust researcher

The district attorney in the Polish town of Krakow is looking into the possibility of pressing charges against Polish-born Jewish American historian Jan Tomasz Gross and the Znak publishing house, for "publicly slandering the Polish nation." The prosecution released the statement after bookstores in the country began selling this weekend the Polish edition of Gross' book Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz. Gross is a history professor at Princeton University. His highly-acclaimed book, which was published in the US over a year ago, describes the widespread anti-Semitism and violence towards Poland's Jews who survived the Holocaust, including a pogrom in the town of Kielce in 1946. Krakow's district attorney is currently examining whether the book falls under the legal section of the Polish criminal law that states that "those who publicly slander the polish nation for its alleged part in orchestrating or taking part in the crimes of the Communists or Nazis will be subject to a three-year prison sentence." Gross' previous book, Neighbors, describes the pogrom of Polish Jews by their fellow Poles in the Polish village of Jedwabne during WWII.( Sever Plocker / 14.01.2008 )