‘Reconciliation’ urged in Poland
Holocaust rescuers seek dialogue amid diplomatic crisis
WARSAW, Poland — The last surviving Christian Poles who helped Jews during the Holocaust appealed Monday to Polish and Israeli authorities to return to a path of “dialogue and reconciliation” amid a diplomatic crisis and a surge of anti-semitism sparked by a new Polish law that criminalizes some forms of Holocaust speech.
They made their appeal in an open letter which 89-year-old Anna Stupnicka-bando read to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during a ceremony in Warsaw.
The letter was signed by 50 Poles who describe themselves as the last survivors of the more than 6,700 Poles recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem as “Righteous Among the Nations” — gentiles who risked their own lives to hide Jews from German forces.
In their letter they wrote that they oppose divisions between Poles and Jews and seek a “future based on friendship, solidarity and truth.”
Morawiecki paid tribute to them, saying they had “served humanity and Poland … saving our common brothers during the times of the second apocalypse.”
The law that raised tensions between Poland and Israel criminalizes falsely attributing the Holocaust crimes of Nazi Germany to Poland. The measure has angered Holocaust survivors and officials in Israel, where it is seen as an attempt to whitewash the actions of Poles during World War II.
Bartosz Cichocki, a deputy foreign minister, said Monday that “the fears expressed by Israel and international opinion” are “completely unfounded.”
There has been a resurgence of openly anti-semitic comments in Polish public life amid the crisis, sometimes expressed by elected officials or carried by public media.
Some Jewish officials and groups have also made anti-polish comments. The most provocative was a video released last week by a U.S.based philanthropy, the Ruderman Family Foundation, which shows people using the historically inaccurate term “Polish Holocaust” in open defiance of the law.
The foundation withdrew the video amid outrage by Poles and Jewish organizations in Poland and elsewhere, which said using the term was wrong and unfair and exacerbated an already difficult situation.