Reactions are mixed after the anti-Semitic attack by a right-wing extremist politician in Poland. Many are shocked – others support him. Anti-Semitism has a long history in Poland.
The first reaction after right-wing extremist MP Grzegorz Braun attacked a Hanukkah ceremony with a fire extinguisher in the Polish Sejm was loud and clear. Members of all factions are shocked.
“We cannot allow evil to overwhelm good, nor allow madness, absurdity, insults and racism or anti-Semitism to determine order in the Sejm,” says Sejm Marshal Szymon Hołownia. Braun is excluded from the meeting. A fine will be imposed.
Anti-Semitism as a tradition?
The second reaction is also clear: Within a few hours, the equivalent of more than 11,000 euros in donations were received – for Grzegorz Braun so that he can pay his fine. Anti-Semitism finds support and has a tradition – also in Poland.
Four days later, on December 16th, an anniversary takes place that goes largely unnoticed. 101 years ago, Poland’s first post-independence president, Gabriel Narutowicz, was assassinated after just five days in office. The Polish right had previously defamed him as a “candidate of the Jews”.
Many prejudices against Jews
Michał Bilewicz, head of the Center for Prejudice Research at the University of Warsaw, says about 40 percent of people in Poland believe that “Jews are plotting behind the scenes to gain power over financial institutions, the world of culture and politics.”
“Comparative research by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights shows that the nature of anti-Semitism is different in Eastern and Western Europe,” says Bilewicz. “In Eastern Europe it is much more closely linked to the extreme right, in Western Europe it is particularly linked to the extreme left and Muslim groups.”
Researcher: Poland disappointed Jews during the war
In addition to ancient and modern conspiracy stories, Bilewicz sees a special feature: secondary anti-Semitism, the trivialization or even denial of crimes against Jews, which can also be found in Polish politics.
On the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April of this year, Holocaust researcher Barbara Engelking said in an interview: Although many Poles helped Jews at the time, there were also many informers. “The Jews were exceptionally disappointed by the Poles during the war,” said Engelking. “They knew what to expect from the Germans. Relations with the Poles were much more complicated.”
PiS denies the representation
The then Polish government of the PiS party reacted indignantly. Poles, according to their story, were victims and heroes, and definitely not perpetrators. The fact that the Polish neighbors also carried out progroms in Jedwabne or Kielce, for example, has no place.
Engelking was heavily targeted and has hardly appeared in public since then. In 2018, the government even tried to pass a law that would make it a criminal offense if Poles were found to be complicit in crimes against Jews in World War II. The relationship between Israel and Poland is – among other things – tense today.
Jews as scapegoats
In 1968, long after the war, Poland experienced a new wave of anti-Semitism. Władysław Gomółka, the general secretary of the Polish Unity Party, finds a scapegoat for the country’s student protests in the small Jewish community that survived the Shoah. “Some of the student youth of Jewish vote or nationality were actively involved in the events,” he says. “Parents of many of these students hold more or less responsible and high positions in our state.”
An estimated 13,000 Jews leave the country. Here, too, there were a number of cases of denunciation, often for one’s own benefit. Here too, the official narrative is still not a self-critical one. It was not the Poles who were to blame, but the government imposed on them by Moscow.
Shortly before the attack, Rabbi Shalom Ber Stambler lit the candles of the Hanukkah candlestick in a ceremony.
Rabbi: “Shouldn’t look at one person”
The Jewish community in Poland now numbers around 7,000 people. It is small but visible. The day after the attack in the Sejm, the ceremony is repeated.
Rabbi Szalom Ber Stambler says he feels safe in Poland. “You shouldn’t look at a single person who provokes something terrible, but at all the reactions,” says Ber Stambler. “Many people called me, expressed their solidarity and said they were ashamed.”
Grzegorz Braun, the anti-Semite with the fire extinguisher, wanted to bring darkness and instead made light.
Martin Adam, ARD Warsaw, tagesschau, December 19, 2023 8:22 a.m