Polish president apologizes for Jewish expulsion

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s president made an emotional plea for forgiveness on Thursday for the expulsion of 13,000 Poles of Jewish origin from Poland 50 years ago, decrying the loss the country suffered with their departure.

President Andrzej Duda made his appeal during a speech marking the anniversary of mass student protests against the Moscow-backed communist regime in 1968. Those protests were exploited by the communist party to purge Jews from the party and from Poland.

Among those who were forced out were Holocaust survivors and prominent intellectuals.

“I want to ask forgiveness of those who were expelled,” Duda said. “Through my lips Poland is asking forgiveness, asking them to be willing to forget, to be willing to accept that Poland regrets very much that they are not in Poland today.”

Speaking at the Warsaw University campus that was the site of the 1968 protests, he said the expulsions were a “shameful act” and the departures a loss for Poland.

A group of the current government’s opponents, many holding white roses — a symbol of their protest — chanted “disgrace,” ”hypocrite,“and ”go away from the campus.“

Duda is allied with the ruling Law and Justice party whose nationalist polices are blamed by critics for sparking a rise in xenophobia and a recent dispute with Israel.

In March 1968, students staged protests against censorship and in support of academic freedom that were brutally quashed by the regime.

Earlier Thursday, Duda laid flowers beneath a plaque at a railway station in Warsaw that was the departure point for some of the expelled Jews.

The Israeli and U.S. ambassadors attended observances there.