> >
Print

POLAND

Poland's extremist nationalist parties performed poorly in the September 1997 general election. However, right-wing and anti-Semitic elements became part of the governing coalition. In early 1997 there were several serious anti-Semitic incidents, including an arson attack against a synagogue in Warsaw. The priest Henryk Jankowski again caused a furor when he said there was no place for Jews in the Polish government.

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

There are some 8,000 Jews in Poland out of a total population of 39 million. Some estimates place the number much higher, at almost 20,000, a result of the growing phenomenon of the rediscovery of Jewish roots among people who were raised as Christians during the Holocaust, or whose parents concealed their origins during the communist era. The largest concentration of Jews is in Warsaw, with smaller communities in Krakow, Lodz, Wroclaw, Szczecin, Gdansk, and Katowice. There are almost no Jews left in the eastern part of the country, where once major Jewish centers such as Lublin and Bialystok flourished.

The Jewish umbrella organization is the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Organizations (KKOZRP). The Union of Jewish Religious Communities and the secular Social and Cultural Organization, are the two leading Jewish organizations. The Jewish Historical Institute (ZIH) plays an role in documenting the rich history of Polish Jewry.

In early 1998 the Polish parliament initiated legislation to restore Polish citizenship to thousands of Jews who left Poland in the late 1960s as a result of the anti-Semitic campaign of the communists, in which Jews served as scapegoats for the regime's social and economic failures.

EXTREMIST ORGANIZATIONS AND HATE GROUPS

While Poland's extremist organizations have remained on the fringes of political life, without parliamentary representation, xenophobic nationalists have shown an ability to use social and economic dislocations to advance their own interests..

In the September 1997 general election the extremist nationalist parties again performed poorly. But, significantly, contacts have been developing between extremists and the more moderate rightist forces which have formed the new government of Electoral Action Solidarity (AWS). According to the newsletter Fascism Watch of October 23, 1997, one member of the National Right entered parliament. The National Right is a "clone" of the French FN. A significant proportion of members of the coalition government profess right-wing, nationalist, and even anti-Semitic views. There is no doubt that, overall, the post-election political scene in Poland is more open to nationalist rhetoric, which could very easily become anti-Semitic.

Among the anti-Semitic groups that ran in the elections through an alliance policy was the National Democratic Party (SND), which joined with the well-established Polish Peasant Party (PSL). The SND won no seats.

The Movement for the Rebuilding of Poland, led by Jacek Kurski, is a nationalist, xenophobic party which, some opinion polls predicted in late 1996, could receive 10 percent of the vote and gain representation in the elections. However, it failed to do so. Typically, it accused the previous government of placing "Jews before Poles".

The Youth of Greater Poland (MW), which aims at uniting various extremist nationalist organizations, expanded its activities in a program that calls for "promoting Catholicism, national identity and Latin civilization." During 1997 the MW continued to receive support from various nationalist and skinhead groups. Based on its ideology of a "greater Poland," the MW cooperates with the extremist Polish National Community, led by Boleslaw Tejkwoski, and the Polish National Front. While MW's polemical tone is somewhat more moderate compared to the vitriolic language used by various small groups, its emphasis on the Polish leadership's promotion of foreign economic interests, including those of Israel, leave no doubt as to its ideological position.

ANTI-SEMITIC ACTIVITIES

Violence, Vandalism and Threats

In early 1997, there were several serious incidents, including an arson attack in February on a synagogue in Warsaw, and threats against the Lauder Foundation. Also, in the course of the year, a memorial dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust in Staszow, southern Poland, was desecrated and smeared with anti-Semitic slogans. Polish leaders immediately condemned the acts of vandalism and threats.

Skinhead attacks on visiting Israeli youth delegations were on the increase. In one such incident, in the old city of Warsaw, the skinheads shouted obscenities, gave the Nazi salute and threw beer cans at an Israeli group.

Propaganda

Anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist material was published in small periodicals of extremist groups, as well as in various publications -- provincial papers, especially -- which were not necessarily connected with political extremism. The author of one such article in the provincial paper Glos Rzeszowa raised the possibility that Jewish ritual murder had occurred in his town, and wrote that Zionism was worse than racism, since it was to blame for the deaths of thousands of Jews.

Anti-Semitic statements by Polish politicians and clergymen are a regular occurrence. In 1997 the most publicized case was that of the priest Henryk Jankowski, known for anti-Semitic remarks he made in 1995. In October 1997 he referred to the expected appointment of Bronislaw Geremek, who is of Jewish origin, as Poland's foreign minister. Jankowski declared that there was no place for Jews in the Polish government. He also condemned the Polish government's apology for the 1946 Kielce pogrom. His remarks immediately drew sharp criticism from the higher echelons of the Roman Catholic Church, and Jankowski was banned by the Archbishop of Gdansk from preaching for a year. It should be noted that the Polish media promptly condemned Jankowski, placing his remarks in the context of the ongoing debate on the nature of Polish-Jewish relations.

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

Holocaust denial, such as that expressed in Western European and even East European states, is almost unknown in Poland. However, several developments linked to the memory of the Holocaust and the post-Holocaust period, such as the question of restitution of Jewish property, have been used by extremists to voice their views.

Overall, the restitution of Jewish property remains a political question, and its treatment by the centrist right-wing government and the local authorities elected in the 1997 elections, will be of a crucial importance for further Polish-Jewish ties. In early 1998 the government returned a synagogue near the Auschwitz death camp, the first such action under the government's policy to restore Jewish property. The synagogue had been seized under a 1946 communist decree.

Pressure to execute government decisions and hasten the return of Jewish communal property, was applied by the World Jewish Restitution Organization, which decided, at its council meeting in Jerusalem in June 1997, to try to impede the efforts of Poland and other East European candidates from entering NATO unless they cooperated over the restitution of Jewish property.

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM

The formation of the new center-right government in Poland after the 1997 elections initially aroused concern among the Jewish community inside and outside Poland. It was feared that the new coalition government would prove less determined than the previous liberal-socialist one in handling issues related to racism and ethnic hatred, including anti-Semitism. However, Poland's desire to join European bodies such as NATO and the EU, as well as the new government's reassurances to Jewish organizations that the process of returning confiscated property would continue, left little doubt that there would be no significant change in its position on these issues.

The Polish media continued its frequent discussions on the nature of present-day Polish-Jewish relations and anti-Semitism in Polish society. Some papers spoke out clearly against Henryk Jankowski's anti-Semitic remarks. The weekly Polytika published an article in January 1998 suggesting that in spite of the existing laws, the Polish courts were reluctant to enforce the clauses on spreading racial and ethnic hatred.

The highly regarded Catholic weekly, Tygodnik Powszechny, of January 11, 1998 published several pieces on the issue, supplementing a previous article published in November 1997 in the weekly by Father Stanislaw Musial, who criticized the church's rather meek attitude to Jankowski's slanders. In one article, Musial was criticized as overreacting to "anti-Jewish," not necessarily "anti-Semitic" statements. Furthermore, according to the author, theology professor Waldemar Chrostowski, Jankowski's opposition to the appointment of a person of Jewish origin as foreign minister, reflected the apprehension of many Poles. Chrostowski, who has a favorable record on Jewish-Polish dialogue, did not justify Jankowski's remarks, but tried to present them in a wider context. However, Chrostowski did mention the role of Jews in bringing about the communist regime, for which "of course the Jews should not be blamed collectively." Chrostowski also attempted to place Jankowski's words in a different context from that of the media, wondering if they were not a reaction to the statements of world Jewish leaders who never missed an opportunity to attack Poland.

Chrostowski also defended the church's reaction to Jankowski's statements, to which Stanislaw Musial replied, in the same issue of Tygodnik Powszechny, that anti-Zionism of non-Jews always amounted to anti-Semitism. Musial branded some of Chrostowski's attitudes as "anti-Semitic," and renewed his call that the church clarify its definition of anti-Semitism.