I'll first frame this in context--every couple of years, either through Poles who I know personally, or through the news, I hear that someone (first it was Stephen Fry, now it's FBI Director James Comey) has accused Poland of complicity or mentioned Polish involvement with the Holocaust, and it results in diplomatic outrage. So I'm here for the facts.
I'm reasonably familiar with interwar and WWII history, including the fact that Poland was under Nazi occupation for the duration of the Holocaust, and that it didn't exist as a country during that time. I know that much of the Holocaust took place in what is now Poland. I also know that it's also true that there were collaborators from all countries occupied by the Nazis, and Poland isn't unique in this respect. It's also true that Polish anti-Jewish and anti-Roma sentiment long predates Nazism in Europe--Poland is obviously not alone in this either. And I know that resistance to the Nazi occupation, especially close to the end of the war, is a cornerstone of modern Poland's identity.
So my question is several-fold, and I'll break it down here. Try to answer objectively if you can, but I realize these are very tricky questions:
To what extent did Poles (i.e., the Polish population) support the Nazi roundup and killing of Jews and other minorities who became victims of the Holocaust? How do we know this and how can we know this?
Auschwitz and many other Nazi deathcamps were located in what is today Poland. To what extent were these facilities staffed, supported, or run by ethnic Poles? I know there were many foreign SS divisions (even Muslim divisions); were there Polish SS divisions and is there any evidence that they participated in the Holocaust?
I know some countries which willingly joined the Third Reich (such as Austria) received a less harsh de-Nazificiation program at the end of the war than did West Germany. Many countries which fell on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain had no explicit de-Nazification program at all. Did any of the state institutions set up by the Nazi occupation of Poland survive the war's end, and to what extent are these institutions represented in modern Poland?
And now a more philosophical question--certainly, there was anti-Jewish sentiment in the Soviet Union before the Axis invasion. It's doubtful anyone would accuse Ukrainians or Belarussians (or modern Belarus or Ukraine) of complicity in the Holocaust, due to the brutal nature of the Nazi occupation and many other factors, even if at the village level people were turning over their neighbors. Is there any reason occupied Poland should be held to a different standard? Is there a case against Poland more substantial than say, France, which has admitted to handing over Jews during their Nazi occupation?
DISCLAIMER: I realize this is a sensitive subject. My only interest is in historical fact and civil discussion. If you have other feelings to share on the subject, feel free to PM me to avoid violating the sub's rules.
This is, indeed, a contentious topic, and has been for quite some time. The reality is that Poles, generally speaking, did not support the genocide, and a great many helped Jews escape it.
However, there is some indication that not as much was done as could've been, particularly in the Polish resistance. Apart from small sections that focused on it particularly, the Polish resistance did not care very much about stopping the Holocaust in progress. They never made any serious effort to attack the death camps, for instance. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began and ended without large-scale support from Poles, even though they would themselves have a separate Warsaw uprising months later.
Really, a big problematic part of the legacy is that the above tends to be very fiercely opposed in some Polish circles. In the 80s this debate got into Polish newspapers and things got very victim-blamey very quickly (as well as diminishing the extent of Jewish suffering, so as to make it comparable with that of Poles, or to co-opt it). So besides the actual debate on what Poles did during the Holocaust, there's debate on what sorts of narratives are acceptable and not among Poles when talking about the Holocaust (i.e. "why do you Jews hate Poles so much?", which isn't really the case. Or whether or not it's appropriate to talk about Polish antisemitism in the context of the Holocaust, or to act as though Polish and German antisemitism were completely unrelated phenomena).
And now a more philosophical question--certainly, there was anti-Jewish sentiment in the Soviet Union before the Axis invasion. It's doubtful anyone would accuse Ukrainians or Belarussians (or modern Belarus or Ukraine) of complicity in the Holocaust, due to the brutal nature of the Nazi occupation and many other factors, even if at the village level people were turning over their neighbors. Is there any reason occupied Poland should be held to a different standard? Is there a case against Poland more substantial than say, France, which has admitted to handing over Jews during their Nazi occupation?
This is actually sort of backwards. Ukraine and the Baltic states were far more complicit in the Holocaust than Poland was. When the Nazis rolled into Vilna the first massacre was by Lithuanians. A lot of camps and mass shootings were at least partially staffed by Ukrainian collaborators, which wasn't really the case with Poles. But for some reason debate on the Polish role in the Holocaust has been much more significant than in Lithuania or Ukraine.
There are a few possible reasons for this. First, Poland had the largest Jewish communities in Europe, and the death camps were located there, forcing Poles to come to terms with what happened in Poland (even if they don't think they had anything to do with it) to a greater extent than other countries. But I think the big one is that WW2 and various Nazi war crimes gets really caught up in Polish national narratives in a way I've not seen in those other countries. For many Poles the narrative of the Poles being oppressed and resisting the Nazis has a lot of emotional appeal, and the notion of another group being more victimized at the same time in the same place without the help of the Polish resistance (though with the help of many Poles) complicates that.
Something like this flares up every few years, and it's usually interesting and a bit bizarre. The fact that this happens has more to do with how the Holocaust is viewed in different countries than the actual history that took place.