Tadeusz Piotrowski or Thaddeus Piotrowski (born 10 February 1940) is a

Polish-American Polish Americans ( pl, Polonia amerykańska) are Americans who either have total or partial Poles, Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 9.15 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing abou ...

sociologist and author. He is a professor of sociology in the Social Science Division of the

University of New Hampshire at Manchester The University of New Hampshire at Manchester (UNH Manchester) is the urban campus of the public University of New Hampshire and is located in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was established in 1985 as the sixth college of the University of New Ham ...

Manchester, New Hampshire Manchester is a city in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. It is the most populous city in New Hampshire. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 115,644. Manchester is, along with Nashua, one of two seats of New Hamp ...

.University of New Hampshire at Manchester
Thaddeus Piotrowski.
''Faculty.'' Internet Archive.

Early life and education

Born in the region of

Volhynia Volhynia (also spelled Volynia) ( ; uk, Воли́нь, Volyn' pl, Wołyń, russian: Волы́нь, Volýnʹ, ), is a historic region in Central and Eastern Europe, between south-eastern Poland, south-western Belarus, and western Ukraine. Th ...

occupied Poland ' ( Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 Octobe ...

, Piotrowski and his family left in August 1943. He earned his PhD in sociology from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1973.

Career

Piotrowski's courses at the University of New Hampshire include the social history of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

and courses in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

. Piotr Wróbel considers Piotrowski's works as "highly polemical and controversial", similar to those by

Richard C. Lukas Richard Conrad Lukas (born 1937) is an American historian and author of books and articles on military, diplomatic, Polish, and Polish-American history. He specializes in the history of Poland during World War II. Lukas is best known for '' Th ...

and

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz Marek Jan Chodakiewicz (born July 15, 1962) is a Polish-American historian specializing in Central European history of the 19th and 20th centuries.Jewish state within the Polish one" were a smoldering issue in the

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

. Piotrowski argues that at the outbreak of the war "radical members" of the minorities sided with the Nazis and Soviets. Piotrowski greatly widens the generally accepted bounds of the

so that it includes not only Jews but all Polish victims of Nazis and Soviets. The book is organized by collaboration of each ethnic group, blaming those who "colluded with the enemy to the detriment of the Polish state and the Polish people". Olsak-Glass sees the chapter on Jewish collaboration as provocative, though important, writing that while Piotrowski acknowledges some antisemitism in Poland he questions its extent and causes stating that some of the responsibility for antisemitism "must surely rest on the shoulders of the Jews themselves". The final chapter examines the

Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia The massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia ( pl, rzeź wołyńska, lit=Volhynian slaughter; uk, Волинська трагедія, lit=Volyn tragedy, translit=Volynska trahediia), were carried out in German-occupied Poland by th ...

, is based on recent scholarship as well as a personal recollection, and details savage barbarity that is not available in other English language books. Overall, Olsak-Glass considers the volume to be a valuable contribution to the field. Klaus-Peter Friedrich considers the methodology in ''Poland's Holocaust'' to be questionable. Friedrich writes that the book is critical towards ethnic minorities in Poland and apologetic towards ethnic Poles. Overall, Friedrich considers the work to be "unbalanced" as Piotrowski "considers collaboration exclusively under ethnic terms as if it was ethnically determined". Lisiunia A. Romanienko considers ''Poland's Holocaust'' as an attempt at setting the record straight in the light of recent scholarship denouncing the role of Poles in World War II. In the book, Piotrowski attempts to redefine the

so that it is expanded to include all "systematic genocidal victims" of the war. The book is not organized chronologically but by cultural coordination/collaboration between ethnic groups, which Romanianko writes provides a refreshing departure inhibiting further ill-feeling regarding the role of Ukrainians, Russians, Germans, Poles, Jews, Lithuanians and Belorussians in the Holocaust on territory of Poland; although Piotrowski's research indicates that involvement of each group in victimising Polish Jews and Catholics was at times ubiquitous, he prohibits widespread censure of entire cultures. Romanianko states that Piotrowski's book is one of the most comprehensive and well documented, multi-methodological contributions to scholarly work in the area."

Selected works

Piotrowski's major books include: * ''Vengeance of the Swallows: Memoir of a Polish Family's Ordeal Under Soviet Aggression, Ukrainian Ethnic Cleansing and Nazi Enslavement, and Their Emigration to America'' (1995),

McFarland & Company McFarland & Company, Inc., is an American independent book publisher based in Jefferson, North Carolina, that specializes in academic and reference works, as well as general-interest adult nonfiction. Its president is Rhonda Herman. Its former ...

, * ''Poland's Holocaust'' (1998, 2006), McFarland, , * ''Genocide and Rescue in Wolyn'' (2000, 2009), McFarland, , * ''The Indian Heritage of New Hampshire and Northern New England'' (2002, 2009), McFarland, , * ''The Polish Deportees of World War II'' (2004, 2008), McFarland, , .

Awards

* The Cultural Achievement Award from the

American Council for Polish Culture The American Council for Polish Culture (ACPC) is a national non-profit, charitable, cultural and educational organization that serves as a network and body of national leadership among affiliated Polish-American cultural organizations throughout ...

* The Literary Award of the Polish Sociocultural Centre of the Polish Library in London * Gold Medal Award for "promoting Polish history and culture", bestowed by the American Institute of Polish Culture at the 35th International Polonaise Ball in Miami.Polish American Historical Association,

Notes

References

Inauthor: Tadeusz Piotrowski.

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Piotrowski, Tadeusz 1940 births American sociologists Polish emigrants to the United States Living people University of Pennsylvania alumni Saint Francis University alumni University of New Hampshire faculty Polish sociologists People from Volyn Oblast