H EADLINES
Professor Rejects $19K Award from Polish Institute
L OCA L
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
TO PROFESSORS, grants
and awards are the currency
upon which they do their most
important work. So, in that light,
a $19,000 award can make or
break a crucial career project.

Eliyana Adler, an associate
professor of history and Jewish
studies at Penn State University,
understands the dynamic very
well. Yet she’s turning down the
award anyway.

Early in November, Adler
wrote a letter to the Polish
government-affiliated Pilecki
Institute rejecting the off er. Th e
Jewish professor, who studies the
“modern Jewish experience in
Eastern Europe,” according to
Penn State’s website, said it was a
matter of principle.

“Th e Pilecki Institute, while
very generous in supporting
some historical scholarship on
the Second World War, has also
been involved in suppressing
the work of historians who
strive to show the complex and
indeed tragic aspects of Poland’s
wartime past,” Adler wrote.

A 2019 Polish law prevents
the country’s citizens from
holding the government respon-
sible for aiding in Nazi atrocities.

In February, a Polish court ruled
that two historians had to apolo-
gize for discovering that a Polish
mayor had helped the Nazis
carry out a pogrom. By August,
though, that ruling had been
overturned on appeal.

Adler, nonetheless, sees a
trend and doesn’t want to aid
in the whitewashing of history.

If she accepted the award,
she would not have just been
able to take the money for her
research. She would have been required
to become a representative of
the Pilecki Institute and, in
eff ect, the Polish government.

According to the professor, her
duties would have included
giving talks on behalf of the
institute and sitting for a video
interview with its website.

Adler explained that the
Pilecki Institute takes the same
approach as the Polish govern-
ment to the World War II era.

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It tries to focus on Polish people
who helped Jews — and to
obscure those who didn’t.

With her “very Jewish face
and name,” as she described
them, Adler would have aided in
this eff ort.

“For an institution that
people have questions about,
who better than me to put on
their website?” Adler said.

Th e Penn State professor, who
also teaches at Gratz College in
Philadelphia, did say that she
appreciates the institute’s focus
on non-Jews who helped Jews
during the Holocaust.

“I would never want to
diminish those non-Jews,” Adler
said. “But when that becomes
the only story that’s presented,
it’s a manipulation of history.”
In response to Adler’s letter,
the director of the Pilecki
Institute, Wojciech Kozłowski,
wrote a letter challenging
her claims.

Its tone was diplomatic
and much of its content was
complimentary toward Adler.

But Kozłowski still expressed a
desire for the professor to air
her grievances through dialogue
with the institution, not through
rejecting it.

“I agree that ‘recognizing
and researching this entangled
past is part of moving forward,’”
Kozłowski wrote, referring to
Adler’s original letter. “Th is
cannot be done, however, in
the absence of a culture of open
dialogue.” Adler didn’t respond to
Kozłowski’s letter.

“I don’t want to get into a
this-detail or that-detail war
with anybody else,” she said. “I
just want to take a stand on
behalf of history.”
Th e Pilecki Institute wanted to
award Adler the $19,000 because
of her last book: “Survival on the
Margins: Polish Jewish Refugees
in the Wartime Soviet Union.”
But the professor would have
used the money to research her
next project: an exploration of
memorial books that show life
in Polish towns before and then
Professor Eliyana Adler
Photo by Michael T. Davis
during the Holocaust.

Such books are fi lled with
photographs, essays, maps,
drawings and documents to
bring those old towns back to
life for historical memory. Th ey
are oft en the products of Jews
around the world pooling their
resources to build albums of life
in Jewish towns.

Adler wants to learn about
the history and ubiquity of these
albums — and to perhaps write
her own book.

“It’s kind of a grassroots
response to the Holocaust,
to loss, to homesickness, to
longing,” she said of the albums.

“I fi nd it very beautiful.”
Due to their photo album
style, the books are not taken
seriously by the academic world,
according to Adler. But she views
them as important artifacts.

“Th ey’ve been derided for
being amateur-ish,” Adler said.

“I want to give it some serious
attention.” To do so, though, she will
need money. But Adler, like
most professors, is used to that
process. She is always applying
for grants and awards.

Now, aft er rejecting a big
one on principle, she just has to
apply for some more. And she’s
already gotten started.

“I’m confi dent that sooner
or later I’ll be able to get my
research done,” Adler said. ●
jsaff ren@jewishexponent.com;
215-832-0740 JEWISHEXPONENT.COM