Poland's public prosecutor may this week begin legal action against a Princeton professor or his publishing company if an investigation finds his book ``insulted the nation'' for blaming the deaths of Jews after World War II on Poles' participation in Nazi war crimes. ``If proceedings begin, we may summon the author for questioning,'' Boguslawa Marcinkowska, a spokeswoman for the Krakow public prosecutor, said by phone today. ``A decision will probably be made this week.''
The book by Jan Tomasz Gross, entitled ``Fear. Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz,'' stirred debate even before it hit Polish bookstores on Jan. 11, as academics, clerics and readers discussed one of the darkest chapters of the country's 20th- century history. An English edition was published in 2006.
Gross, who left Poland in 1969 after anti-Jewish unrest the year before, says attacks on Polish Holocaust survivors were motivated by widespread anti-Semitism and a wish to avoid disputes over Jewish assets belonging to people who were presumed dead by their Catholic neighbors.
``The book's been selling so well, we ran out of copies only a day after the publication,'' Monika Marianowicz, a spokeswoman for Empik Media & Fashion SA, which sells books in its 103 stores throughout Poland, said by phone. ``I guess everyone wants to see what the fuss is about.''
`Good Exposure'
A spokesman for Gross's publisher, Znak, said the company won't take action until the public prosecutor decides on its next steps. It expects a statement ``within the next few days.''
``We have to be grateful to the prosecutor for taking this case up,'' Tomasz Miedzik, a spokesman for Znak, said by phone. ``Nothing else could have given the book such good exposure.''
Gross focuses on a pogrom in the southern Polish town of Kielce in 1946, a year after the end of World War II. He argues that Nazi race theories had strengthened already existing prejudices in Poland. Some leading Polish historians disagree.
Marek Chodakiewicz, a professor of history at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, said in an interview with the daily Rzeczpospolita published on Jan. 11 that Gross picked out facts to back up his theory and ignored others that might have led to a different interpretation.
It's unfair to depict Poland as deeply anti-Semitic, said Burt Schuman, the country's chief rabbi. He blamed the country's bad image on the fact that many Polish Jews who survived the Nazi occupation and emigrated to the U.S. took with them reports of Polish anti-Semitism and collaboration.
``What's happening now is harming our goal of reconciliation,'' Schuman said by phone today. ``It's good that the book has triggered a debate, but both sides have gone into lockdown currently rather than seeking dialog.''
Slander Law
The former government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, passed a law in 2006 that allows the charge of ``slandering the Polish nation by accusing it of participating in communist or Nazi crimes.''
The public prosecutor in Krakow, where Gross's Polish publisher is based, decided to investigate ``Fear'' after reading press reports that ``suggested the book may have broken this law,'' Marcinkowska said.
An estimated 3 million Polish Jews were killed during World War II, mostly in concentration camps set up by the country's Nazi occupiers.
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