Poland: Far-right marches in protest at US pressure for Holocaust restitution

Via Times of Israel:

Thousands of Polish nationalists marched to the US Embassy in Warsaw Saturday, protesting that the US is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust.

The protest took place amid a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic hate speech in public life in Poland and it appeared to be one of the largest anti-Jewish street demonstrations in recent times. It also comes as far-right groups are gaining in popularity, pressuring the conservative government to move further to the right.

Protesters, including far-right groups and their supporters, say the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the US government is putting “Jewish interests” over the interests of Poland.

Poland was a major victim of Nazi Germany during World War II and those protesting say it is not fair to ask Poland to compensate Jewish victims when Poland has never received adequate compensation from Germany.

“Why should we have to pay money today when nobody gives us anything?” said 22-year-old Kamil Wencwel. “Americans only think about Jewish and not Polish interests.”

The protesters shouted “no to claims!” and “This is Poland, not Polin,” using the Hebrew word for Poland.

Rafal Pankowski, a sociologist who heads the anti-extremist group Never Again, called the march “probably the biggest openly anti-Jewish street demonstration in Europe in recent years.”

One couple wore matching T-shirts reading “death to the enemies of the fatherland,” while another man wore a shirt saying: “I will not apologize for Jedwabne” — a massacre of Jews by their Polish neighbors in 1941 under the German occupation.

Among those far-right politicians who led the march were Janusz Korwin-Mikke and Grzegorz Braun, who have joined forces in a far-right coalition standing in the elections to the European Parliament later this month. Stopping Jewish restitution claims has been one of their key priorities, along with fighting what they call pro-LGBT “propaganda.” The movement is polling well with young Polish men.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki echoed the feelings of the protesters at a campaign rally Saturday, saying that it is Poles who deserve compensation.

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Poland: Bishop delivers thinly veiled anti-Semitic sermon

Via Times of Israel:

Andrzej Jeż appears to refer to Jews during Easter speech, saying ‘certain nation’ plotted in 1937 to slander Catholic Church by controlling media

A Polish bishop said that “a certain nation” plotted in 1937 to divide and slander the Catholic Church by controlling the media.

Andrzej Jeż, who is the top Catholic spiritual leader in the city of Tarnow near Krakow, appeared to be referring to Jews last month in his Easter sermon, which was filmed.

The video aired Thursday in an article by the Kan public broadcaster.

“A certain nation, I can’t name it because I would be attacked from all sides immediately, said this: ‘Our natural enemy is the Catholic Church. We need to slander them and sow hatred against them, we have to create scandals about their private lives to incite hatred and ridicule against them. We must strengthen our media because then our control will be strong and secure’,” Jez said.

Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, said the remarks underscore an internal fight within the Catholic Church between supporters and opponents of that institution’s reform about 50 years ago of its anti-Semitic tenets.

“I’ve never heard anything like this said,” Schudrich told Kan. “What the bishop said goes against modern-day Catholic faith.”

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Poland: Southern Polish town burns effigy of Judas, made to look like Hasidic Jew

Via JTA:

A town in southern Poland reenacted the custom of casting judgement on Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus, using a life-size effigy of a stereotypical Jew with a hooked nose and sidelocks.

The event in the town of Pruchnik, called “Judgment over Judas,” took place on Friday afternoon. On a pole on Pope John Paul II Street, the residents hung the large effigy of the Jew which bore the label “Judas 2019, traitor!”

The crowd cut the effigy down from the post, dragged it on a rope through the town, stopping at the square in front of the church and at the street crossing where the effigy was beaten 30 times. After reaching the local river, the head of the effigy was cut off and the effigy was burned.

The rite attracted a crowd of onlookers. Children were encouraged to beat the effigy. There were some anti-Semitic cries, such as “Five more hits for wanting compensation from Poland.”

The custom of the judgment over Judas has occurred at least since the eighteenth century and takes place in the days preceding Easter. In the past, it was accompanied by acts of direct violence against Jewish residents. In the years of the Polish People’s Republic, the tradition gradually disappeared.

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Poland: Again, an attack on the Jewish cemetery in Czestochowa

Via CFCA:

Czestochowa – In December, antisemitic inscriptions was spray-painted on the gate of the Częstochowa Jewish cemetery.

Now a vandal smash the grave of Rabbi Pinchas Menachem Justman, who died in 1920.

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Poland: Right-wing newspaper’s front page teaches ‘how to recognize a Jew’

Via Times of Israel:

A right-wing newspaper with national distribution in Poland ran on its front page an article that instructs readers on “how to recognize a Jew.”

The Polish-language weekly, Tylko Polska, or “Only Poland,” lists on its front page “Names, anthropological features, expressions, appearances, character traits, methods of operation” and “disinformation activities.”

The text also reads: “How to defeat them? This cannot go on!”

The page also features a headline reading, “Attack on Poland at a conference in Paris.” The reference is to a Holocaust studies conference last month during which Polish nationalists complained that speakers were anti-Polish. That article features a picture of Jan Gross, a Polish-Jewish Princeton University scholar of Polish complicity in the Holocaust and a frequent target of nationalist attacks.

Only Poland is published by Leszek Bubl, a fringe nationalist political candidate and sometime musician who has sung about “rabid” rabbis. The paper was spotted Wednesday at the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, as part of this week’s packet of periodicals.

Michał Kamiński, a conservative lawmaker, protested the article and its presence at the Sejm, Polsat news reported.

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Poland: Antisemitic signs on buildings in Warsaw

Via CFCA:

At the beginning of the week, huge signs were hung on the walls of several residential buildings in Warsaw with the inscription “These buildings will soon be returned to the Jews to meet their demands.”

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Poland: Amid tensions over the Holocaust, Jewish cemeteries vandalized

Via JTA

Two Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized in Poland amid a fresh diplomatic crisis between that country and Israel over complicity in the Holocaust.

In the city of Świdnica, a suburb of Wroclaw in southwestern Poland, at least 15 headstones were smashed last week at the local Jewish cemetery. Other headstones were painted with black graffiti, including one of a pentagram – a symbol associated with Satanism.

Local police are investigating possible anti-Semitic motives, the website Wmeritum reported.

The cemetery had seen previous incidents, Monika Krawczyk, chairwoman-elect of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“The evil comes back,” she added.

Separately, in Wroclaw the words “Jesus is King” were written on the fence of another Jewish cemetery on Feb. 13. Several locals showed up earlier this week to paint over the slogan, Gazeta Wroclawska reported Sunday.

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Poland: Will they „hang a Jew” under the Israeli embasy? Police prepares for Saturday

Translated from Gazeta Wyborcza (many thanks!):

"You know me, it’s going down. I promise I’ll put up a scaffold under the Israeli embassy and I’ll hang a Jew from it” -- this is how Slawomir Dul announces his Saturday demonstration. Our reader calls for action to the ABW [Agency of Internal Security] and the police.

„I’ve been trying to get several forces to notice these men, but they don’t seem to be interested in any kind of intervention. It’s even more puzzling to me since what I have found out about the man who started in the past local election as a candidate for a member of the [city district] council is  shocking. He also invited a man who called for people to join him in „hanging an effigy of a Jew” under the embassy of Israel to appear on his Youtube channel - says Piotr [the name has been changed], our informer.

Candidate for [Warsaw] city district council: „Ukraine needs to be partitioned”

The man who has been accused by our reader is Damian Bieńko, ran in [the last month’s] election for the council of the Praga-Południe district of Warsaw as the No. 1 candidate on the ballot from the Wolność [Freedom] party of Janusz Korwin-Mikke [note: it is a far-right, eurosceptical party, openly anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, anti-women’s rights, racist and often also antisemitic party, the leader is currently an MEP]. He was the head of the Narodowa Wolna Polska organization [National/Nationalist Free Poland] - one of the smallest nationalist organisations, which is notable for its sympathy towards Russia and the Donbas separatists. „Ukraine needs to be partitioned. so that its territories will return to the rightful owners - Donbas to Russia, Lviv to Poland, Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary”, says Bieńko in his online recordings. Currently, he runs a Youtube channel called TWN Telewizja Wolności Narodu [Television of Freedom of the Nation].

On 22nd of November, his guest was Sławomir Dul, a member of Confederacy of Parents. The man has announced a demonstration under the embassy, which is to include a „hanging of an effigy of a Jew”.

Dul has been previously noted for a long court struggle during which he attempted to regain the custody of his children [he held a hunger strike in Piotrkow Trybunalski after having the visitation rights revoked], as well as burning an effigy of Jaroslaw Kaczynski [the leader of the ruling right-wing party] in 2016. It was a way of manifesting his support for Piotr Rybak, who has been sentenced to 10 months of inprisonment after burning an effigy of a Jew in Wroclaw. Dul has said of the judge who sentenced Rybak: „he should be put against a wall and executed by a firing squad.”

In the TWN show, Dul has announced his plans to organise a march from the Ukrainian embassy to the Israeli embassy on December 1st at 12 PM. He invites all the Polish people to join, „from the left and the right alike” - "You know me, it’s going down. I promise I’ll put up a scaffold under the Israeli embassy and I’ll hang a Jew from it,” he says.

Bieńko joins him - „I also invite you. Even if you don’t agree, come, watch the show, maybe you’ll join the troupe.”

KSP: We aren’t downplaying the issue

Our informer has contacted the KSP [Police Headquarter in Warsaw], including the protection of diplomatic posts division, the anti-terrorist division and the homicide division. „The video remains on YouTube though. They aren’t doing anything. I demand blocking it and looking into those people. I’m ashamed that this is going on in Poland,” Piotr says angrily.

Warrant officer Mariusz Mrozek from the Warsaw Police Headquarter assures that the case is known to the police, and that the emails have been noted. „Maybe your informer hasn’t received a response, but we are treating the matter seriously. We are in touch with the city hall. The Office of Security and Crisis Management has informed its Ochota district cell, as this is where the embassy of Israel is located.”

As officer Mrozek says, Dul has attempted to register his demonstration [at the city hall], but the city didn’t approve it, partly because of his YouTube annoucement. Dul has appealed.

„According to the informations I received, the city sent a set of documents to the Ochota district's court, as well as the prosecutor’s office. Still, no matter what the decision will be, we are aware of the fact that some people break the bans. Therefore we are preparing ourselves for everything that might happen on Saturday. We are not downplaying the issue,” adds officer Mrozek.

Poland: In secret recording, PM slams ‘greedy’ Jewish, American hedge fund owners

Via Times of Israel:

Poland’s prime minister was heard making allegedly anti-Semitic remarks in secret recordings from 2013, before he rose to power.

The recordings of Mateusz Morawiecki complaining to friends about “greedy” and rich “Americans, Jews, Germans, Englishmen, and Swiss” that run hedge funds were published Tuesday by the news site Onet.

Part of a corruption scandal, the remarks appeared in a 3-hour recording of Morawiecki, who was then a senior banker, discussing politics and finance with his friends at a prestigious Warsaw restaurant. 

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Poland: Jewish cemetery vandalized for second time in a month

Via Times of Israel:

A Jewish cemetery near Krakow was vandalized for the second time in less than a month, resulting in damage to dozens of headstones.

At least 30 headstones were pushed over, some of them shattered, in the latest incident recorded at the cemetery in Mysłowice, a town located about 40 miles west of Krakow, the Jewish.pl news site reported Tuesday on its Facebook page.

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Study: ‘Surge’ in Polish antisemitism since controversial Holocaust law

Via Jerusalem Post:

A new academic study by the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs has described “a surge” in hostility to Jews and Israel in Polish media and politics in 2018 following the efforts to pass a controversial law making it a crime to say that the Polish state or nation was complicit in the Holocaust.

According to the study written by Dr. Rafał Pankowski, a sociology professor at Warsaw’s Collegium Civitas, there has been a “disturbing revival of antisemitism” in Poland since the law was introduced and stirred controversy.

“The surge of hostility to Jews and the Jewish State in the Polish media and politics in early 2018 took many observers by surprise,” wrote Pankowski for the IJFA, a publication of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations which operates under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress.

“It was also a great shock because, for many years, bilateral relations between Poland and Israel had been especially cordial and fruitful.”

Pankowski noted that Poland has made “significant progress in recognizing and researching the inconvenient truths about its own legacy of antisemitism” unlike other post-Communist countries in eastern Europe.

“In the wake of the new legislation, however, that progress has been seriously hampered and the findings of these historians, and even their patriotism, has been called into question,” he wrote.

He noted that while in recent years anti-Jewish discourse was mainly confined to extreme quarters, of late it has found a prominent place in the mainstream media, especially in state-controlled news outlets.

“The surge in radical nationalist discourse,” warns Dr. Pankowski, “reflects a deeper crisis of liberal, democratic, and humanistic values – in Poland and elsewhere in post-Communist Europe, as well as in the wider world.”

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Poland honors satirist who said Jews create antisemitism

Via Jerusalem Post:

A Polish satirist who in 2016 made anti-Semitic jokes on television and later accused Jews of fomenting hatred against themselves was awarded his country’s highest distinction for artists.

Ryszard Makowski, 62, was awarded the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture on Thursday along with 20 others by Culture Minister Piotr Gliński in Warsaw, the w Polityce news website reported. Makowski won the bronze medal, the lowest of three categories in the distinction awarded annually to artists by the ministry.

“It is an expression of thanks by Poland for your creativity and for your commitment, for your talent – that is always augmented with work, perseverance, creative courage,” Gliński said in presenting the award.

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Poland: Priest Accused of anti-Semitism Behind New Holocaust Museum

Via Haaretz:

A new museum in Poland will exhibit over 40,000 accounts of Polish Christians who saved Jews during the Holocaust.

The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage will donate $22 million to the Saint John Paul II Memory and Identity Museum. Its goal is to present the over 1,000-year history of Christian Poland with particular emphasis on the teachings of Pope John Paul II and its impact on the fate of Poland, Europe and the world.

The museum, located in Toru, will be run by the Lux Veritatis Foundation associated with the controversial Roman Catholic priest Tadeusz Rydzyk, who for years ran a radio station that espoused anti-Semitic views.

Part of the exposition will feature the accounts by witnesses on the rescue of Jews by Poles during World War II. Rydzyk and the Lux Veritatis Foundation have collected the accounts since 1995.

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Poland: Magazine asks “just how strong is the Jewish lobby?” on its front cover

Via Everyday Antisemitism:

Right wing Polish magazine Do Rzeczy has published an antisemitic issue which features the question “just how strong is the Jewish lobby?” on its front cover.

The weekly right wing magazine was founded in 2013 and represents Christian conservatism in the country.

The article pits the mysterious “Jewish lobby” against Poland, asking “can the Polish government handle it?”. Poland is currently governed by the far right Law and Justice Party, a party infested with antisemitism from the top all the way down to the grassroots.

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Anti-Semitic incidents drop sharply in Poland and Hungary, watchdogs say

Via Times of Israel:

Despite widespread concerns recently of a rise in anti-Semitism in Poland and Hungary, watchdog groups in both countries said the number of incidents recorded there in 2017 dropped sharply from the previous year.

In Hungary, the Jewish community’s watchdog on anti-Semitism, TEV, said this week in its annual report for 2017 that it had recorded 37 anti-Semitic incidents compared to 48 in 2016, constituting a 23 percent decrease. Some 100,000 Jews live in Hungary.

In Poland, which is home to some 20,000 Jews, Deputy National Prosecutor Agata Gałuszka-Górska last month said that the number of anti-Semitic incidents had dropped by 30 percent, to 112 last year from 160 in 2016. Anti-Semitic hate crimes accounted for about 6 percent of all hate crimes recorded, she said.

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France supports a UN Security Council resolution on Gaza

Another illustration of the "politique arabe" of France. "At the UN, France, China, and Russia were among the countries that voted in favor of the draft put forward by Kuwait on behalf of Arab countries. Four countries, Ethiopia, the UK, the Netherlands, and Poland abstained."

Via The Times of Israel:

Israeli deputy minister Michael Oren on Saturday slammed France for supporting a UN Security Council resolution on Gaza, saying Paris was hypocritical for supporting an “anti-Semitic resolution.”

Oren’s comments, in a tweet, prompted outrage from France’s ambassador in Israel Hélène Le Gal who accused Oren of not even reading the resolution and “insulting France.”

On Friday the United States vetoed an Arab-backed UN draft resolution calling for protective measures for the Palestinians that won backing from ten countries at the Security Council. A US resolution condemning Hamas also failed.

‏ “Praise for the US for vetoing Security Council resolution on Gaza that didn’t mention Hamas and condemned the IDF for defending Israel,” tweeted Oren, the deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office who is responsible for diplomacy.

“Shame on France for supporting it. French government cannot say it’s against anti-Semitism and vote for this anti-Semitic resolution,” said Oren, a former ambassador in Washington.

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Poland's Auschwitz Museum Staff Suffer Anti-Semitic Attacks After Holocaust Speech Law

Via Telesur:

In April, the brother of the museum’s director wrote a heartfelt message on Facebook decrying the “50 days of incessant hatred” directed at his brother, Piotr Cywiński.

"For 12 long years he’s worked in one of the most terrible places in the world, in an office with a view of gallows and a crematorium," Cywiński wrote. "Dozens of articles on dodgy websites, hundreds of Twitter accounts, thousands of similar tweets, profanities, memes, threats, slanders, denunciations. It’s enough to make you sick."

Paweł Sawicki, who runs the museum’s social media operation, told the Guardian, "The collateral damage of the dispute is that Auschwitz became a target. We’ve had people saying they were not allowed to have a Polish flag here, or saying that the memory of Poles is not represented here, that the museum is anti-Polish – all of this is untrue, and we had to respond."

The museum, however, continues with a stiff stance, as it continues to regularly interject in Twitter discussions and by publishing a long list of false claims that have been made about the museum, ranging from the issue of Polish flags to the accusation that former Polish prisoners being not invited to a ceremony in January to commemorate the camp’s liberation.

The hate campaign initiated by the Polish nationalists has raised concerns over the pressure exerted on the official guides at the site in southern Poland. 

The Guardian reported that at least two tourist guides suffered abuse,  in one episode a foreign guide was attacked while in another the supporters of a convicted antisemite filmed themselves repeatedly bullying their guide during a visit to the camp in April.

In February, the official responsible for schools in the region in which Auschwitz is located argued that only Poles should be allowed to work as guides at the site. And they should be licensed by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance, a state body widely seen as a tool used by the government to impose its preferred historical narratives.

"Foreign, and not Polish narratives reign at Auschwitz. Time for it to stop," wrote Barbara Nowak, who until last year served as a local councilor for Law and Justice. 

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Polish prime minister under fire for Holocaust remarks

Via New Europe:

During a recent conference in Germany, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has come under fire for controversial comments that he made while speaking at a conference in Germany where he accused the Jews of being one the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

The Polish government later attempted to clarify Morawiecki‘s remarks, saying Warsaw was in no way denying the Holocaust or hinting at the possibility that Jewish victims were responsible for atrocities committed that resulted in the death of 6 million Jews during World War II.

The Israeli response to Morawiecki’s comments was swift, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu phoning his Polish counterpart to express his disgust.

Poland has come under fire for the introduction of a law that makes it illegal to accuse the country of being complicit in the Holocaust or referring to Nazi concentration camps as “Polish death camps”.

Morawiecki was asked at Munich Security Conference on April 21 whether he expected a backlash for telling a story about his mother who survived the Holocaust and told him that some Poles had collaborated with the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s secret police.

 “Of course it’s not going to be punishable, not going to be seen as criminal, to say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators, as there were Ukrainian, not only German perpetrators,” Morawiecki replied.

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Poland: Officials prevent award to author accused of anti-Semitism

Via The Times of Israel:

Polish officials have intervened to prevent an author accused of anti-Semitism from receiving an award at a Polish diplomatic outpost in the United States.

A private US-based Polish organization had planned to give awards at the Polish consulate in New York next week to three people. One, Polish author Ewa Kurek, has claimed that Jews had fun in the ghettos during the German occupation of Poland during World War II. 

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Poland: Senior Politician in Antisemitic Rant: ‘The Jews Are Not Humans, They Are Animals!’

Via Algemeiner:

The growing trend of antisemitic outbursts among leading Polish politicians and public figures reached new heights this week, when a close ally of the country’s deputy prime minister took to social media to denounce Jews as “animals.”

“Żydzi to nie ludzie to zwierzęta!” – “The Jews are not humans, they are animals!” – an enraged Kazimierz Plotkowski posted on Twitter on Wednesday. The tweet was later deleted, after being captured by several screenshots shared online.

Plotkowski, a successful businessman, is a co-founder and former regional leader of the Polska Razem (“Poland Together”) Party of deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Gowin, and an adviser to the Polish government on energy and mining. The party was founded by Gowin, an outspoken social conservative, in 2013 after he was dismissed from the post of Justice Minister in the previous government.

Following his Twitter outburst, Plotkowski told Polish news outlet NaTemat that he was responding to an unspecified “article” in which Poles were depicted as “pigs who robbed Jews in the ghetto.” However, his original tweet was posted after the museum at the Auschwitz concentration camp announced that it was replacing a small exhibition about a group of Poles executed by the Nazis in 1943 with another about resistance in the camp. Several influential Poles, including historian Adam Cyra, have protested that the decision demeans the suffering of Poles under the Nazis. A spokesperson for the museum told the PAP Polish news agency this week that the new exhibit would show the central role played by Polish inmates in building a resistance movement inside Auschwitz.

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