Centrum Badań nad Zagładą

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Centrum Badań nad Zagładą is a Polish research institute dedicated to the study of the Holocaust, Jewish history, and related episodes of mass violence in twentieth-century Europe. The center situates its work within the fields shaped by scholars and institutions such as Jan Karski, Primo Levi, Hannah Arendt, Yad Vashem, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, engaging archival collections, survivor testimony, and legal archives from tribunals like the Nuremberg trials, Eichmann trial, and regional commissions. It collaborates with universities, museums, and NGOs including Jagiellonian University, University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and international partners such as Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Central European University, and the European Union research programs.

Historia

The center emerged in the post-communist era alongside projects inspired by figures and institutions like Adam Mickiewicz University, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Bronisław Geremek, Simon Wiesenthal Center, and scholarly trends established by historians of the Holocaust such as Lucy Dawidowicz, Raul Hilberg, Martin Gilbert, Debórah Lipstadt, and Saul Friedländer. Its foundation drew on archived holdings transferred from state archives and collections connected to Auschwitz concentration camp, Treblinka, Belzec extermination camp, Sobibor, and regional archives in Kraków, Lublin, Białystok, and Łódź. Over time the center responded to debates involving the Institute of National Remembrance, legislative initiatives in Poland, controversies surrounding memorialization like the Polish–Jewish relations, and comparative scholarship from institutions such as Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft.

The mission emphasizes documentation, scholarly research, public education, and commemoration, aligning with the mandates of institutions like Yad Vashem, Memorial de la Shoah, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and university departments at Harvard University, Oxford University, and Columbia University. Objectives include preserving survivor testimony akin to projects associated with Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation, promoting research comparable to work by Jan Gross, Norman Davies, Efraim Zuroff, and facilitating legal-historical analysis related to precedents such as the Nuremberg trials and the Eichmann trial. The center also seeks to inform cultural heritage initiatives involving UNESCO and national museums like the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Administrative frameworks mirror models used by academic centers connected to University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University, Polish Academy of Sciences, and museums like Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Governance includes a board with scholars, legal experts, and public figures comparable to appointments seen at Yad Vashem, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Simon Wiesenthal Center. Departments are organized around archival studies, oral history, legal history referencing cases such as the Eichmann trial and the Nuremberg trials, pedagogy with links to teacher-training initiatives at Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN, and digital humanities collaborations with projects at European Holocaust Research Infrastructure and Central European University.

Research programs investigate topics addressed by scholars like Jan Gross, Tim Snyder, Christopher Browning, Ian Kershaw, Efraim Zuroff, Claude Lanzmann, and Primo Levi: local collaboration and resistance in regions including Lublin, Podlachia, Kresy, and Galicia; ghettoization studies referencing Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Łódź Ghetto; deportation and extermination studies concerning Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec extermination camp, and Auschwitz; and postwar justice linked to trials such as Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt and proceedings in Israel and Poland. Projects have included digitization of archives similar to initiatives by USHMM, oral-history campaigns resembling the Shoah Foundation, comparative genocide studies connecting to scholarship on Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and legal-historical work on crimes against humanity influenced by the Rome Statute and tribunals like the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The center issues peer-reviewed monographs and edited volumes comparable to presses at Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and university publishers at Jagiellonian University Press and University of Warsaw Press, and produces curriculum materials for teachers similar to programs by Yad Vashem and US Holocaust Memorial Museum. It curates digital collections akin to Europeana and the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure, publishes journals and working papers featuring contributors such as Jan Gross, Tim Snyder, Christopher Browning, Efraim Zuroff, and Dina Porat, and provides multimedia exhibitions modeled on displays at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The center has faced debates similar to controversies involving Institute of National Remembrance, disputes over historical interpretation raised by figures like Jan Gross and Norman Davies, and public controversies paralleling cases in Poland where legislation and memory politics intersect with scholarship. Critiques have come from academics affiliated with Jagiellonian University, University of Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences, international commentators associated with Yad Vashem and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and civil society organizations, focusing on issues of narrative framing, source selection, and engagement with postcommunist archival access. Legal and ethical disputes echo international cases tied to trials and truth commissions such as the Eichmann trial, Nuremberg trials, and truth-seeking mechanisms in South Africa and Rwanda.