New anti- semitic law strains Israeli- Polish ties
Warsaw, March 6: On the 50th anniversary of a brutal anti- Semitic campaign in Poland, the country faces a diplomatic crisis with Israel over a controversial new Holocaust law. In 1968, partly to settle disputes inside the ruling Communist Party, the Polish government stripped many Jews of party membership, and thus jobs, prompting around 12,000 to leave the country.
Today, Poland’s conservative Law and Justice party has been accused of trying to deny the Holocaust after introducing a law notably intended to prevent people from describing Nazi death camps in German- occupied Poland as Polish.
“It’s not the same today,” said Adam Michnik, a prominent communistera dissident who is now editor- in- chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s leading liberal newspaper.
“There are certainly similarities. Once again there’s a growing image of a Poland besieged by enemies and the enemies are the Jews who want to do us harm,” he said.
The law, which went into effect last week, sets fines for up to three years in jail for anyone ascribing “responsibility or coresponsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich”. Israel sees it as a bid to deny that individual Poles participated in the extermination of Jews during World War II, a claim Warsaw refutes.
“There was no antiSemitic impulse behind the Holocaust bill. It has to do with something completely different: to show that Poland is no longer on its knees, to give the finger to Brussels and especially to Ukrainians,” Mr Michnik said.
The PiS government has been at odds with the EU over a number of issues, including Warsaw’s controversial judicial reforms, its refusal to welcome refugees and logging in the Bialowieza forest.
“There is of course the rhetoric of the nationalist right that at times takes up anti- Semitic slogans, but it’s marginal,” Mr Michnik added.
The head of the Polish communist party at the time, Wladyslaw Gomulka, wanted to get rid of other members were ex- Staliniststs to blame for the economic crisis, the difficulties, the social conflicts,” he said.