All about Nortom
editNow let's look at Nortom. Unfortunately we don't info about each and every author published by Nortom. However we have info about many of them. The Nortom catalogue is here. It reads almost like a catalogue of the Polish National Democratic movement that between the world wars was responsible for discrimination against Poland's Jewish, Ukrainian and German minorities. Some authors published by Nortom (facts without links here are referenced in the authors' biographies, just follow the wikilinks):
- Roman Dmowski head of the interwar anti-semitic Polish National Democratic Party (see here for more details about his antisemitism)
- Janusz Dobrosz, Polish right-wing politican
- Jędrzej Giertych, political ally of Roman Dmowski who was in Spain on Franco's side during the Spanish civil war who was expelled from a Polish emigre [politcal party due to his extremism and antisemitism
- Maciej Giertych, the son of the guy above, a right-wing Polish politican who created a scandal due to his antisemitic writing
- Feliks Koneczny a Polish political theorist who proposed that Jews were plotting to destroy "Latin-Christian civilization" and that Nazism was actually a form of "Jewish civilization."
- Roman Rybarski, an economist from the National Democratic Party
- Edward Prus, a Polish anti-Ukrainian writer. Polish historian Rafał Wnuk of the Institute of National Remembrance in Lublin wrote here that his works belong to a trend that is "of no scientific value. Their authors play freely with historical facts. They appeal mostly to the reader's emotions. Their use of sources and researchers' findings does not contribute to historical discoveries. Instead it is used to make their "true" version of events credible. It is often only politically involved publicism, not historical work. Edward Prus, Aleksander Korman, and Jacek E. Wilczur are followers of this trend." Yale historian and expert on Eastern Europe Timothy D. Snyder writes of Prus [1]: "The propagandistic publications of Edward Prus are indefensible in this regard."
- Aleksander Korman, another Polish anti-Ukrainian historial writer. See comments above.
Nortom is privately owned by Norbert Tomczyk. According to the The Steven Roth Institute for the study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Tel Aviv. (you can read this online here) Norbert Tomczyk is "one of the leaders of the SN" (political party) and that the SN's "ideology derives from that of the pre-war antisemitic Endecja (National Democratic) movement led by Roman Dmowski. The SN in its present shape was created in April 2000 out of a merger of two previously rival nationalist parties. It is now led by Boguslaw Kowalski, who served as spokesman of former President Lech Walesa in 1995. The SN supported General Tadeusz Wilecki, former chief of staff of the Polish army, as its presidential candidate. Wilecki demanded, inter alia, that all other candidates prove their Polish ancestry to the fifth generation and praised the housing policy of Adolf Hitler. Despite high expectations he received only 0.16 percent of the vote."
The controversy section of this article states "In 2000, Nortom was forced to withdraw its 12 controversial titles from the Frankfurt Book Fair by the Polish Ministry of Culture representative Andrzej Nowakowski overlooking the Polish exposition. Nortom was accused of selling anti-German, Anti-Ukrainian and antisemitic books, especially the following titles: Być czy nie być by Stanisław Bełza, Polska i Niemcy by Jędrzej Giertych and I tak nie przemogą. Antykościół, antypolonizm, masoneria by his son Maciej Giertych. As a result of the above request, the president of the Polish delegation Andrzej Chrzanowski from Polska Izba Książki decided to penalize Nortom by removing it from the 2000 book fair altogether." (all facts are referenced in the article).
According to this aticle by the Roth Institute of the University of Tel Aviv, "antisemitic, Holocaust distorting, as well as Holocaust denying, books published by Rekonkwista, Rachocki, Nortom or Antyk can often be found on the shelves of respectable bookshops."
FROM THEIR OWN WEBSITE ! "The Publishing House "Nortom", founded in 1992, is specialized in edition of books on patriotic themes, unknown belles artes, history of Poland and its bordelands and politics with special stress on national ideas. These book considered in some circles as "politicaly incorrect", remove "white stains" from the history and politics and give warning about local and international manipulations damaging society, Fatherland and Europe.