Poland, the epicentre of the Holocaust, began denying responsibility as soon as the Nazi atrocities ended. The nation's distortion of history continues today - with disturbing consequences. This issue of The Jewish Quarterly explores the failure of modern Poland to reckon with the nation's role in the Holocaust. In this ground-breaking essay, Jan Grabowski, a world-renowned Holocaust historian, examines how the government, museums, schools and state institutions became complicit in delivering a message of Polish national innocence during the Holocaust. He recounts his own experience as the victim of smears and a notorious lawsuit for questioning the complicity of Poles in the destruction of the country's Jews, and examines the far-reaching consequences of Poland's historical distortions, which have been repeated and replicated worldwide to challenge the truth of the Holocaust.