Poland: "It’s the same old anti-Semitism"

Via Haaretz:

Though the newly elected government seems to be invested in only one narrative concerning Poland’s wartime past, some don’t see the related anti-Semitic activity as anything new.

“First of all, there is no ‘latest wave,’” says Konstanty Gebert, a Warsaw-based journalist for Gazeta Wyborcza, a Polish Jewish activist and author of “Living in the Land of Ashes.” “It’s the same old anti-Semitism, given more prominence by the fact that its supporters are now part of the victorious political camp. There will be some more of it, in Hungarian style, but it is not an autonomous feature. Rather, attitudes toward Jews are an indicator of broader positions on the democracy/authoritarianism divide.”

And most see the subject of the partisans’ relationship to Jews as part of that fault line.

“It’s a taboo topic. Many of the pogroms were carried out by partisans who are considered national heroes here,” says Zuzanna Radzick, a board member of Forum for Dialogue, the largest Polish nongovernmental organization dedicated to Jewish-Polish reconciliation through various initiatives. “The next big discussion in this country will be about the underground.”

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