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The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives which also includes two public prosecution service components exercising investigative, prosecution and
lustration Lustration in Central and Eastern Europe is the official public procedure of scrutinizing a public official or a candidate for public office in terms of their history as a witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former commun ...
powers. The IPN was established by the
Polish parliament The parliament of Poland is the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Poland. It is composed of an upper house (the Senate of Poland, Senate) and a lower house (the Sejm). Both houses are accommodated in the Sejm and Senate Complex of Poland, S ...
by the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance of 18 December 1998 through reforming and expanding the earlier Main Commission for the ''Investigation'' of Crimes against the Polish Nation of 1991, which itself had replaced the General Commission for Research on Fascist Crimes, a body established in 1945 focused on investigating the crimes of the Nazi administration in Poland during World War II. In 2018, IPN's mission statement was amended by the controversial Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance to include "protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation". The IPN investigates and prosecutes
Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
and
Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
crimes committed between 1917 and 1990, documents its findings, and disseminates them to the public. Some scholars have criticized the IPN for politicization, especially under
Law and Justice Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...
governments.Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, Jolanta. "The uses and the abuses of education about the Holocaust in Poland after 1989."
Holocaust Studies 25.3 (2019): 329-350.
The IPN began its activities on 1 July 2000. The IPN is a founding member of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience. Since 2020, the IPN headquarters have been located at Postępu 18 Street in
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
. The IPN has eleven branches in other cities and seven delegation offices.


Purpose

The IPN's main areas of activity, in line with its original
mission statement A mission statement is a short statement of why an organization exists, what its overall goal is, the goal of its operations: what kind of product or service it provides, its primary customers or market, and its geographical region of operation ...
,"Mission"
. From IPN English website. Last accessed on 20 April 2007
include researching and documenting the losses which were suffered by the Polish Nation as a result of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and during the post-war totalitarian period. The IPN informs about the patriotic traditions of resistance against the occupational forces, and the Polish citizens' fight for sovereignty of the nation, including their efforts in defence of freedom and human dignity in general. According to the IPN, it is its duty to prosecute crimes against peace and humanity, as much as war crimes. Its mission includes the need to compensate for damages which were suffered by the repressed and harmed people at a time when human rights were disobeyed by the state, and educate the public about recent
history of Poland The history of Poland spans over a thousand years, from Lechites, medieval tribes, Christianization of Poland, Christianization and Kingdom of Poland, monarchy; through Polish Golden Age, Poland's Golden Age, Polonization, expansionism and be ...
. IPN collects, organises and archives all documents about the Polish Communist security apparatus active from 22 July 1944 to 31 December 1989. Following the election of the
Law and Justice Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...
party, the government formulated in 2016 a new IPN law. The 2016 law stipulated that the IPN should oppose publications of false information that dishonors or harms the Polish nation. It also called for popularizing history as part of "an element of patriotic education". The new law also removed the influence of academia and the judiciary on the IPN. A 2018 amendment to the law, added article 55a that attempts to defend the "good name" of Poland. Initially conceived as a criminal offense (3 years of jail) with an exemption for arts and research, following an international outcry, the article was modified to a civil offense that may be tried in civil courts and the exemption was deleted. Defamation charges under the act may be made by the IPN as well as by accredited NGOs such as the Polish League Against Defamation. By the same law, the institution's mission statement was changed to include "protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation".


Organisation

IPN was created by special legislation on 18 December 1998. The IPN is divided into:Nowelizacja ustawy z dnia 18 grudnia 1998 r. o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej – Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu oraz ustawy z dnia 18 października 2006 r. o ujawnianiu informacji o dokumentach organów bezpieczeństwa państwa z lat 1944–1990 oraz treści tych dokumentów.
Last accessed on 24 April 2006
About the Institute
From IPN Polish website. Last accessed on 24 April 2007
* Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (''Główna Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu'') * Bureau of Provision and Archivization of Documents (''Biuro Udostępniania i Archiwizacji Dokumentów'') * Bureau of Public Education (or Public Education Office, ''Biuro Edukacji Publicznej'') * Lustration Bureau (''Biuro Lustracyjne'') (new bureau, since October 2006) * local chapters. On 29 April 2010, acting president Bronislaw Komorowski signed into law a parliamentary act that reformed the Institute of National Remembrance.


Director

IPN is governed by the director, who has a sovereign position that is independent of the Polish state hierarchy. The director may not be dismissed during his term unless he commits a harmful act. Prior to 2016, the election of the director was a complex procedure, which involves the selection of a panel of candidates by the IPN Collegium (members appointed by the Polish Parliament and judiciary). The Polish Parliament (
Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...
) then elects one of the candidates, with a required
supermajority A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fun ...
(60%). The director has a 5-year
term of office A term of office, electoral term, or parliamentary term is the length of time a person serves in a particular elected office. In many jurisdictions there is a defined limit on how long terms of office may be before the officeholder must be subjec ...
. Following 2016 legislation in the PiS controlled parliament, the former pluralist Collegium was replaced with a nine-member Collegium composed of PiS supporters, and the Sejm appoints the director after consulting with the College without an election between candidates.


Leon Kieres

The first director of the IPN was
Leon Kieres Leon Kieres (born 26 May 1948) is a Polish lawyer and politician. He was the president of the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Institute of National Remembrance) (8 June 2000 – 22 December 2005), a judge of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. Bio ...
, elected by the
Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...
for five years on 8 June 2000 (term 30 June 2000 – 29 December 2005). The IPN granted some 6,500 people the "victim of communism" status and gathered significant archive material. The IPN faced difficulties since it was new and also since the
Democratic Left Alliance Democratic Left Alliance may refer to: * Democratic Left Alliance (Poland) The Democratic Left Alliance () was a social democracy, social-democratic list of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. It was formed on 9 July 1991 as ...
(containing former communists) attempted to close the IPN. The publication of '' Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland'' by
Jan T. Gross Jan Tomasz Gross (born 1947) is a Polish-American sociologist and historian. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society emeritus and professor of history emeritus at Princeton University. Gross is the author of se ...
, proved to be a lifeline for the IPN as Polish president
Aleksander Kwaśniewski Aleksander Kwaśniewski (; born 15 November 1954) is a Polish politician and journalist. He served the maximum two terms as the president of Poland from 1995 to 2005. His tenure as President was marked by modernization of Poland, rapid economi ...
intervened to save the IPN since he deemed the IPN's research to be important as part of Jewish-Polish reconciliation and "apology diplomacy".


Janusz Kurtyka

The second director was
Janusz Kurtyka Janusz Marek Kurtyka (13 August 1960 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish historian, and from December 2005 until his death in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash, the second president of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). Kurtyka was b ...
, elected on 9 December 2005 with a term that started 29 December 2005 until his death in the Smolensk airplane crash on 10 April 2010. The elections were controversial, as during the elections a leak against
Andrzej Przewoźnik Andrzej Przewoźnik (13 May 1963 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish historian who served as Secretary of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites. He died in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash near the city of Smolensk, ...
accusing him of collaboration with
Służba Bezpieczeństwa The Security Service (; ), in full Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and commonly known as SB, was a secret police force established in the Polish People's Republic in 1956 as a successor to the Ministry of Public Security (P ...
caused him to withdraw his candidacy. Przewoźnik was cleared of the accusations only after he had lost the election.''Olejniczak: Kurtyka powinien zrezygnować''
Polish Press Agency The Polish Press Agency (, PAP) is Poland's national news agency, producing and distributing political, economic, social, and cultural news as well as events information. It was founded in 1918 as Polish Telegraphic Agency (PAT). PAP serves pri ...
, 13 December 2005, last accessed on 28 April 2007
In 2006, the IPN opened a "Lustration Bureau" that increased the director's power. The bureau was assigned the task of examining the past of all candidates to public office. Kurtyka widened archive access to the public and shifted focus from compensating victims to researching collaboration. Franciszek Gryciuk In 1999, historian Franciszek Gryciuk was appointed to the Collegium of the IPN, which he chaired 2003–2004. From June 2008 to June 2011, he was vice president of the IPN. He was acting director 2010–2011, between the death of the IPN's second president,
Janusz Kurtyka Janusz Marek Kurtyka (13 August 1960 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish historian, and from December 2005 until his death in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash, the second president of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). Kurtyka was b ...
, in the
2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft operating Polish Air Force Flight 101 crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk, killing List of casualties of the Smolensk air disaster, all 96 people on board. Among the victims were the president ...
and the election of Łukasz Kamiński by the
Polish Parliament The parliament of Poland is the Bicameralism, bicameral legislature of Poland. It is composed of an upper house (the Senate of Poland, Senate) and a lower house (the Sejm). Both houses are accommodated in the Sejm and Senate Complex of Poland, S ...
as the third director.


Łukasz Kamiński

Łukasz Kamiński, was elected by the Sejm in 2011 following the death of his predecessor. Kamiński headed the Wroclaw Regional Bureau of Public Education prior to his election. During his term, the IPN faced a wide array of criticism calling for an overhaul or even replacement. Critics founds fault in the IPN being a state institution, the lack of historical knowledge of its prosecutors, a relatively high number of microhistories with a debatable methodology, overuse of the martyrology motif, research methodology, and isolationism from the wider research community. In response, Kamiński implemented several changes, including organizing public debates with outside historians to counter the charge of isolationism and has suggested refocusing on victims as opposed to agents.


Jarosław Szarek

On 22 July 2016 Jarosław Szarek was appointed to head IPN. He dismissed Krzysztof Persak, co-author of the 2002 two-volume IPN study on the Jedwabne pogrom. In subsequent months, IPN featured in media headlines for releasing controversial documents, including some relating to
Lech Wałęsa Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 Polish presidential election, 1990 election, Wałę ...
, for memory politics conducted in schools, for efforts to change Communist street names, and for legislation efforts. According to historian Idesbald Goddeeris, this marks a return of politics to the IPN.


Karol Nawrocki

On 23 July 2021 Karol Nawrocki was appointed as the head of IPN.


Public prosecutors in the IPN

Two components of the IPN are specialized parts of the Public Prosecution Service of Poland, namely the Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation and the Lustration Bureau. Each of these two components exercises its activities autonomically from other components of the Institute and is headed by a director who is ''ex officio'' Deputy Public Prosecutor General of Poland, while role of the IPN Director is in their case purely accessory and includes no powers regarding conducted investigations, being limited only to providing supporting apparatus and, when vacated, presenting candidates for the offices of the two directors to the Prosecutor General who as their superior has the discretionary power to appoint or reject them.


Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation

The Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (''Główna Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu'') is the oldest component of the IPN tracing its origins to 1945. It investigates and prosecutes crimes committed on Polish soil against Polish citizens as well as people of other citizenships wronged in the country. War crimes which are not affected by
statute of limitations A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. ("Time for commencing proceedings") In ...
according to
Polish law The Polish law or legal system in Poland has been developing since the first centuries of Polish history, over 1,000 years ago. The public and private laws of Poland are codified. The supreme law in Poland is the Constitution of Poland. Po ...
include: # Crimes of the Soviet and Polish
Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...
s committed in the country from 17 September 1939 until the
Fall of Communism The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. Th ...
on 31 December 1989. #
Deportation Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or is under sen ...
s to the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
of Polish soldiers of
Armia Krajowa The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
, and other Polish resistance organizations as well as Polish inhabitants of the former Polish eastern territories. # Pacifications of Polish communities between
Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...
and Bug rivers in the years 1944 to 1947 by UB-
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...
, # Crimes committed by the law enforcement agencies of the
Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. ...
, particularly
Ministry of Public Security of Poland The Ministry of Public Security (), was the secret police, intelligence and counter-espionage agency operating in the Polish People's Republic. From 1945 to 1954 it was known as the Security Office (, UB), and from 1956 to 1990 as the Security ...
and
Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army Main may refer to: Geography *Main River (disambiguation), multiple rivers with the same name * Ma'in, an ancient kingdom in modern-day Yemen * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province * Spanish Main, the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish terr ...
. # Crimes under the category of
war crimes A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hos ...
and
crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are certain serious crimes committed as part of a large-scale attack against civilians. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity can be committed during both peace and war and against a state's own nationals as well as ...
.


Lustration Bureau

On 15 March 2007, an amendment to the Polish law regulating the IPN (enacted on 18 December 2006) came into effect. The change gave the IPN new
lustration Lustration in Central and Eastern Europe is the official public procedure of scrutinizing a public official or a candidate for public office in terms of their history as a witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former commun ...
powers and expanded IPN's file access. The change was enacted by
Law and Justice Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...
government in a series of legislative amendments during 2006 and the beginning of 2007. However, several articles of the 2006-7 amendments were held unconstitutional by Poland's Constitutional Court on 11 May 2007, though the IPN's lustration power was still wider than under the original 1997 law. These powers include loss of position for those who submitted false lustration declarations as well as a lustration process of candidates for senior office.


Other activities


Research

The research conducted by IPN from December 2000 falls into four main topic areas: * Security Apparatus and Civil Resistance (with separate sub-projects devoted to Political Processes and Prisoners 1944–1956, Soviet Repressions and Crimes committed against Polish Citizens and Martial Law: a Glance after Twenty Years);Public Education Office
IPN website. Last accessed on 24 April 2007
** Functioning of the repression apparatus (state security and justice organs) – its organizational structure, cadres and relations with other state authority and party organsSecurity Apparatus and Civil Resistance Central Programme
IPN pages, last accessed on 25 April 2007
** Activities of the repression apparatus directed against particular selected social groups and organizations ** Structure and methods of functioning of the People's Poland security apparatus ** Security apparatus in combat with the political and military underground 1944–1956 ** Activities of the security apparatus against political emigreés ** Security apparatus in combat with the Church and freedom of belief ** Authorities dealing with social crises and democratic opposition in the years 1956–1989 f) List of those repressed and sentenced to death ** Bibliography of the conspiracy, resistance and repression 1944–1989 * War, Occupation and the Polish Underground;War, Occupation and the Polish Underground State Programme
IPN pages, last accessed on 25 April 2007
** deepening of knowledge about the structures and activities of the Polish Underground State ** examination of the human fates in the territories occupied by the Soviet regime and of Poles displaced into the Soviet Union ** assessment of sources on the living conditions under the Soviet and German Nazi occupations ** evaluation of the state of research concerning the victims of the war activities and extermination policy of the Soviet and German Nazi occupiers ** examining the Holocaust (Extermination of Jews) conducted by Nazis in the Polish territoriesExtermination of Jews by German Nazis in the Polish Territories Programme
. IPN pages, last accessed on 25 April 2007
*** Response of the Polish Underground State to the extermination of Jewish population *** The Polish Underground press and the Jewish question during the German Nazi occupation * Poles and Other Nations in the Years 1939–1989 (with a part on Poles and Ukrainians);Poles and Other Nations in the Years 1939–1989 Programme
IPN pages, last accessed on 25 April 2007
** Poles and Ukrainians ** Poles and Lithuanians ** Poles and Germans ** Communist authorities – Belarusians – Underground ** Fate of Jewish people in the People's Republic of Poland ** Gypsies in Poland * Peasants and the People's Authority 1944–1989 (on the situation of peasants and the rural policy in the years 1944–1989)Peasants vis-a-vis People's Authority 1944–1989 Programme
IPN pages, last accessed on 25 April 2007
** inhabitants of the rural areas during the creation of the totalitarian regime in Poland; ** peasant life during the Sovietisation of Poland in the years 1948–1956; ** attitudes of the inhabitants of rural areas towards the state-Church conflict in the years 1956–1970; ** the role of peasants in the anti-Communist opposition of the 1970s and 1980s.


Education

The IPN's Public Education Office (BEP) vaguely defined role in the IPN act is to inform society of Communist and Nazi crimes and institutions. This vaguely defined role allowed Paweł Machcewicz, BEP's director in 2000, freedom to create a wide range of activities. Researchers at the IPN conduct not only research but are required to take part in public outreach. BEP has published music CDs, DVDs, and serials. It has founded "historical clubs" for debates and lectures. It has also organized outdoor historical fairs, picnic, and games.Goddeeris, Idesbald. "History Riding on the Waves of Government Coalitions: The First Fifteen Years of the Institute of National Remembrance in Poland (2001–2016)."
The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2018. 255-269.
The ' () is a high circulation popular-scientific journal, intended for lay readers and youth. Some 12,000 of 15,000 copies of the ''Bulletin'' are distributed free of charge to secondary schools in Poland, and the rest are sold in bookstores.The Post-communist Condition: Public and Private Discourses of Transformation
John Benjamins Publishing Company, page 172, chapter by Marta Kurkowska-Budzan
The ''Bulletin'' contains: popular-scientific and academic articles, polemics, manifestos, appeals to readers, promotional material on the IPN and BEP, denials and commentary on reports in the news, as well as multimedia supplements. The IPN also publishes the ' () scientific journal. The IPN has issued several board games to help educate people about recent Polish history, including: * ' – a game about the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain () was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force ...
that focuses on the Polish 303 Squadron. * '' Kolejka'' – a game about being forced to queue for basic household products during the Communist era.


Naming of monuments

In 2008, the chairman of the IPN wrote to local administrations, calling for the addition of the word "German" before "Nazi" to all monuments and tablets commemorating Germany's victims, stating that "Nazis" is not always understood to relate specifically to Germans. Several scenes of atrocities conducted by Germany were duly updated with
commemorative plaque A commemorative plaque, or simply plaque, or in other places referred to as a historical marker, historic marker, or historic plaque, is a plate of metal, ceramic, stone, wood, or other material, bearing text or an image in relief, or both, ...
s clearly indicating the nationality of the perpetrators. The IPN also requested better documentation and commemoration of crimes that had been perpetrated by the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
. The Polish government also asked
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
to officially change the name "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to "Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau", to clarify that the camp had been built and operated by
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. In 2007, UNESCO's
World Heritage Committee The World Heritage Committee is a committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization that selects the sites to be listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the World Heritage List and the List of World Her ...
changed the camp's name to "Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940–1945)." Previously some German media, including ''
Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'', had called the camp "Polish".


Publications

Since 2019, the Institute publishes the ''Institute of National Remembrance Review'' (), a yearly
peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...
in English, with Anna Karolina Piekarska as
editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...
..


Criticism

According to , common criticisms of the IPN include its dominance in the Polish research field, which is guaranteed by a budget that far supersedes that of any similar academic institution; the "thematic monotony ... of micro-historical studies ... of no real scientific interest" of its research; its focus on "
martyrology A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs and other saints and beati arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by na ...
"; and various criticisms of methodology and ethics. Some of these criticisms have been addressed by Director Łukasz Kamiński during his tenure and who according to Mink "has made significant changes"; however, Mink, writing in 2017, was also concerned with the recent administrative and personnel changes in IPN, including the election of Jarosław Szarek as director, which he posits are likely to result in further the politicization of the IPN. According to Valentin Behr, IPN research into the Communist era is valuable, positing that "the resources at its disposal have made it unrivalled as a research centre in the academic world"; at the same time, he said that the research is mostly focused on the era's negative aspects, and that it "is far from producing a critical approach to history, one that asks its own questions and is methodologically pluralistic." He added that in recent years that problem is being ameliorated as the IPN's work "has somewhat diversified as its administration has taken note of criticism on the part of academics." According to Robert Traba, "under the ... IPN, tasks related to the 'national politics of memory' were – unfortunately – merged with the mission of independent academic research. In the public mind, there could be only one message flowing from the institute's name: memory and history as a science are one. The problem is that nothing could be further from the truth, and nothing could be more misleading. What the IPN's message presents, in fact, is the danger that Polish history will be grossly over-simplified." Traba states that "at the heart of debate today is a confrontation between those who support traditional methods and categories of research, and those who support newly defined methods and categories. ... Broadening the research perspective means the enrichment of the historian's instrumentarium.'" He puts the IPN research, in a broad sense, in the former; he states that " solid, workshop-oriented, traditional, and positivist historiography ... which defends itself by the integrity of its analysis and its diversified source base" but criticizes its approach for leading to a "falsely conceived mission to find 'objective truth' at the expense of 'serious study of event history', and a 'simplified claim that only 'secret' sources, not accessible to ordinary mortals', can lead to that objective truth." Traba quotes historian Wiktoria Śliwowska, who wrote: "The historian must strive not only to reconstruct a given reality, but also to understand the background of events, the circumstances in which people acted. It is easy to condemn, but difficult to understand a complicated past. ... eanwhile, in the IPNthick volumes are being produced, into which are being thrown, with no real consideration, further evidence in criminating various persons now deceased (and therefore not able to defend themselves), and elderly people still alive – known and unknown." Traba posits that "there is ... a need for genuine debate that does not revolve around he filesin the IPN archives, 'lustration,' or short-term and politically inspired discussions designed to establish the 'only real' truth", and suggests that adopting varied perspectives and diverse methodologies might contribute to such debate. During PiS's control of the government between 2005 and 2007, the IPN was the focus of heated public controversies, in particular in regard to the pasts of
Solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...
leader
Lech Wałęsa Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 Polish presidential election, 1990 election, Wałę ...
and PZPR secretary
Wojciech Jaruzelski Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski ( ; ; 6 July 1923 – 25 May 2014) was a Polish military general, politician and ''de facto'' leader of the Polish People's Republic from 1981 until 1989. He was the First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party ...
. As a result, the ''IPN'' has been referred to as "a political institution at the centre of 'memory games'". In 2008, two IPN employees, Sławomir Cenckiewicz and Piotr Gontarczyk, published a book, ' (The Security Service and Lech Wałęsa: A Contribution to a Biography) which caused a major controversy. The book's premise was that in the 1970s the
Solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...
leader and later president of Poland
Lech Wałęsa Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who served as the president of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 Polish presidential election, 1990 election, Wałę ...
was a secret
informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a "snitch", "rat", "canary", "stool pigeon", "stoolie", "tout" or "grass", among other terms) is a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information inten ...
of the Polish Communist Security Service. In 2018, the IPN hired Tomasz Greniuch, a historian who in his youth was associated with a far-right group. When he was promoted to a regional director of the Wrocław branch in February 2021, his past came to media attention and resulted in criticism of Greniuch and IPN. Greniuch issued an apology for his past behavior and resigned within weeks.


Organizational and methodological concerns

Valentin Behr writes that the IPN is most "concerned with the production of an official narrative about Poland's recent past" and therefore lacks innovation in its research, while noting that situation is being remedied under recent leadership. He writes that the IPN "has mainly taken in historians from the fringes of the academic field" who were either unable to obtain a prominent academic position or ideologically drawn to the IPN's approach, and that "in the academic field, being an 'IPN historian' can be a stigma"; Behr explains this by pointing to a generational divide in Polish academia, visible when comparing IPN to other Polish research outlets, and claims: "Hiring young historians was done deliberately to give the IPN greater autonomy from the academic world, considered as too leftist to describe the dark sides of the communist regime." He says that the IPN has created opportunities for many history specialists who can carry dedicated research there without the need for an appointment at another institution, and for training young historians, noting that "the IPN is now the leading employer of young PhD students and PhDs in history specialized in contemporary history, ahead of Polish universities". Historian
Dariusz Stola Dariusz Stola is a professor of history at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
states that the IPN is very bureaucratic in nature, comparing it to a "regular continental European bureaucracy, with usual deficiencies of its kind", and posits that in this aspect the IPN resembles the former Communist institutions it is supposed to deal with, equally "bureaucratic, centralist, heavy, inclined to extensive growth and quantity rather than quality of production".Stola, Dariusz. "Poland's Institute of National Remembrance: A Ministry of Memory?" The convolutions of historical politics (2012), pp. 54-55. An incident which caused controversy involved the " Wildstein list", a partial list of persons who allegedly worked for the communist-era Polish intelligence service, copied in 2004 from IPN archives (without IPN permission) by journalist
Bronisław Wildstein Bronisław Wildstein (born 11 June 1952, Olsztyn, Poland) is a former Polish dissident, a journalist, freelance author and, from 11 May 2006 to 28 February 2007, was the chief executive officer of ''Telewizja Polska'' (Polish state-owned televisi ...
and published on the Internet in 2005. The list gained much attention in Polish media and politics, and IPN security procedures and handling of the matter came under criticism.Wojciech Czuchnowski,
Bronisław Wildstein: człowiek z listą
',
Gazeta Wyborcza (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish nationwide daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It was launched on 8 May 1989 on the basis of the Polish Round Table Agreement and as a press organ of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), t ...
, last accessed on 12 May 2006


See also

*
Laws against Holocaust denial Between 1941 and 1945, Government of Nazi Germany, the government of Nazi Germany perpetrated the Holocaust: a large-scale industrialised genocide in which approximately six million History of the Jews in Europe, Jews were systematically murder ...
*
Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression The Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression () in the main institution in the Government of Poland to deal with the issues of Polish veterans of struggles for independence and victims of oppression. In 1991 a special status was set up for ...
* Ukrainian Institute of National Memory


Notes


External links


IPN Home Page
(English) * old''

(''Ustawa z dnia 18 grudnia 1998 r. o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej – Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu'') * old''
Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation
{{Authority control History organisations based in Poland History of Poland (1989–present) Commemoration of communist crimes Platform of European Memory and Conscience Decommunization Transitional justice 1998 establishments in Poland Research institutes established in 1998 Government agencies established in 1998