The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association spoke out against the current wave of antisemitism in Poland and it
became a target of a hostile campaign by a Polish official.
Since late January,
Poland has witnessed a series of outrageous statements in media and politics in
connection with debates around the so-called ‘history law’ prohibiting defamation
of ‘the Polish state and nation’.
For example, Beata
Mazurek, the Polish Parliament’s deputy Speaker and spokesperson of the ruling
party tweeted the words: ‘From now on it will be difficult to look at Jews with
sympathy and friendship’. Jacek Zalek, a deputy chairman of the ruling party
faction in the Parliament, said in a televised interview: if the Poles are held
responsible for the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom ‘than one might conclude that if the
Jewish police was responsible for leading Jews to the gas chambers, than the
Jews themselves created the Holocaust for themselves.’ Kornel Morawiecki MP
said in a recent interview: ‘Do you know who chased the Jews away to the Warsaw
Ghetto? The
Germans, you think? No. The Jews themselves went because
they were told that there would be an enclave, that they would not have to deal
with those nasty Poles.’ The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has documented dozens of
similar comments made in the last weeks.
Members of the ‘NEVER
AGAIN’ Association have protested against the wave of antisemitism through
numerous interventions in Polish and international media. They also took part in
several high-level international meetings where they discussed the current
situation. The meetings included the Polish-British Belvedere Forum held in
London on 19-20 February with the participation of officials and intellectuals,
including Professor Norman Davies and the UK Envoy for Holocaust Issues Sir
Eric Pickles. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ was also represented at the round-table
of the European Council for Tolerance and Reconciliation held in Monaco on 5-6
March with the participation of former British prime minister Tony Blair,
Prince Albert of Monaco, and historian Sir Antony Beevor, among others.
On 19-21 March, the ‘NEVER
AGAIN’ Association was represented at the Global Forum for Combatting
Antisemitism held in Jerusalem with the participation of the President of
Bulgaria Roumen Radev, former French prime minister Manuel Valls, the president
of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder and numerous other figures. ‘NEVER
AGAIN’ co-founder Rafal Pankowski was invited to speak on the Forum’s panel
about historical revisionism and antisemitism in Eastern Europe. His presentation
consisted mostly of examples of controversial statements made by public figures
in the last weeks, with minimum commentary. He pointed to the existence of
Polish civil society initiatives against antisemitism as a positive sign and he
was subsequently congratulated for his talk by numerous conference
participants.
Upon conclusion of the
Global Forum, a hostile social media campaign was launched by Andrzej
Pawluszek, an adviser to the Polish Prime Minister. Pawluszek was also
present at the Forum, but did not take the floor. Instead,
he published a number of tweets calling the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ presentation ‘an
incredible scandal’. He alleged ‘Pankowski did not have much to say, nothing
concrete, he just quoted supposedly <antisemitic> statements of
politicians.’ He also added: ‘It is sad that a Pole had nothing nice to say
about his own country.’
Pawluszek’s smears were
retwitted by, among others, Deputy Speaker of the Senate Adam Bielan and
Krzysztof Ziemiec, the anchor of the main news programme on state-controlled
TV. Rafal Ziemkiewicz, a Polish TV commentator notorious for using antisemitic
language who has 155,000 twitter followers, posted his own comment in response:
‘the problem is the home-made rascal’.
Pawluszek’s campaign was
also taken up by Krzysztof Bosak, a deputy leader of the extreme-right
Nationalist Movement party (Ruch Narodowy, RN), who has 140,000 followers on
twitter. He began his own series of posts by exclaiming: ‘Warning, another
representative of academia defaming Poland’. Bosak’s post was
retweeted by, among others, Sebastian Kaleta, a high-ranking official of the
Ministry of Justice.
Not
surprisingly, the above mentioned posts resulted in a large number of hostile
and threatening comments, for example:
‘Why can’t we put TNT in
the ass of this Pankowski?’
To Pawluszek: ‘Couldn’t
you punch him in the face on our behalf? We would collect money for a possible
punishment.’
‘Pankowski went there to
earn his Judas’ shekels.’
‘Disgusting, who employs
him?’
‘But is this gentleman
really Polish? Or
maybe he only has Polish documents? It would explain
his behaviour!’
‘A Pole? He is just a
Polish-speaking Jewish mongrel dog.’
‘There are full-blooded
Poles, but there are also such lice, misfits and shabes goyim who cannot be
called Poles.’
‘We must identify all
those pseudo-Poles and show them to society. Only the truth will set us free.’
Rafal Pankowski, who is
a sociology professor at Warsaw’s Collegium Civitas, said: - ‘I am disappointed
Mr Pawluszek did not wish to discuss any issues at the Global Forum in
Jerusalem, but resorted to an online campaign. Such behaviour is unworthy of a
public official, but it is unfortunately emblematic of the current climate of
xenophobia.’
The ‘NEVER AGAIN’
Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. The
mission of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is to promote multicultural
understanding and to contribute to the development of a democratic civil
society in Poland and in the broader region of Central and Eastern Europe. It
received personal endorsements from figures such as Jan Karski, Simon
Wiesenthal and Barack Obama, among others.
Additional information:
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ
