Ghetto survivor warns of Polish 'fascism'
Telegraph
24/06/2006
As a 24-year-old banished to the Warsaw ghetto with thousands of fellow Polish Jews, Marek Edelman decided that the only way to fight the Nazis was to take up arms.More than six decades later, the last surviving leader of the ghetto's courageous but doomed uprising of 1943 said he thought similar action justified in today's Poland."If we want to save Poland, my advice would be to take up the knife and hit them where it hurts," Mr Edelman, 87, said in his flat in the central city of Lodz.
His anger is directed at the conservative government, which was elected eight months ago, and two nationalist and radical Right-wing parties that were recently invited to prop it up: the League of Polish Families (LPR) and Self-Defence, whose leader has praised Hitler's economic policies.
Poland's entry to the European Union two years ago has generally been hailed as a success. But it has brought with it heavy doses of illiberalism that are embarrassing the champions of EU expansion. The nation of 40 million is in danger of becoming a hothouse of extremism and Catholic nationalism. Ten days ago the European Parliament condemned "a rise in racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic and homophobic intolerance" and urged the government to tone down its rhetoric or risk sanctions. Drawing parallels with the rise of fascism in the 1930s, Mr Edelman said: "If this coalition continues to shape the country, I truly believe that our freedom is threatened. Persecution starts with small things: first language, then beatings, then murder."
This week a report alleged that the deputy chief of state television had published a neo-Nazi magazine calling for the expulsion of Jews from Poland. Piotr Farfal, 28, claimed that he had only "lent his name" to the magazine. Asked to confirm his identity on a photograph of him giving a Nazi salute, he said: "You can also use this gesture to greet someone."
Gay rights groups around the world protested after Wojciech Wierzejski, the deputy chief of LPR, speaking before the country's annual gay rights march, referred to gays as "deviants" who should be beaten with sticks if they marched without a permit.
But the main focus of detractors' wrath is Radio Maryja, a popular Catholic radio station that is openly anti-semitic and racist. The station was crucial to the electoral success of the Law and Justice Party, which squeezed into power on the back of public dissatisfaction with the previous Left-wing government's corruption and poor economic management. As a result, the station has acquired a huge influence on government business.
Its listeners are, like the supporters of LPR and Self-Defence, typically rural, elderly, staunch Catholics who feel betrayed by the country's free market transformation. Numbering up to four million, they pay for the station through donations and in return lap up not only the morning doses of prayers, recipes and household tips but also the evening political broadcasts and phone-ins in which government figures regularly take part.
In March Mr Edelman wrote an angry letter to the prime minister after a broadcast in which a regular Radio Maryja commentator said that Poland was "being outflanked by Judeans" who, with their "greasy palms", were "trying to extort money from our government". "I wanted to point out that the government is lending support to the most reactionary currents of xenophobia and anti-semitism," said Mr Edelman, a retired heart surgeon. "Radio Maryja should be closed down."
The government rejects the charges, talking of a Left-wing smear campaign. All Polish Youth, the youth wing of LPR, says it is only by making Poland a Catholic state that its future will be secured. "We do not want to become like Holland with its free drugs and gay marriage," said Konrad Bonislawski, 23, a senior member. "Since joining the European Union we have seen attempts to destroy our Catholic values."
One of the government's most controversial moves has been to announce the reintroduction to schools of lessons in patriotism, in which pupils will celebrate their heritage through history lessons and singing the national anthem. The initiative prompted schoolchildren to form the Pupils' Initiative and to storm the education ministry this month, demanding the sacking of Roman Giertych, the education minister and the leader of LPR.
"You can't teach patriotism," said Karolina Szczepaniak, 18, who attends a convent school in Warsaw. "The government is trying to force on us its religious ideas, its homophobia, its racism, as it tries to turn Poland into a Catholic state. "Look at all the cases where fundamentalists impose their ideas on states and you see how dangerous it can be."
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JP Note: according to the stats here, the Jewish population of Poland is 25,000, ie 0.065% of the population
1 comment:
Disturbing stuff.
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"Poland Is Not More Anti-Semitic Than Other European Countries"
by Tuvia Tenenbom
Hudson NY
December 7, 2010
...
Walking the streets of Lodz you cannot avoid noticing its graffiti. Anti-Semitic graffiti, to be precise. It is everywhere. Soccer fans of rival teams call each other "Jew," which in this part of the world is the worst thing you could call anyone. Widzew, a local soccer team, becomes Zydzew on Lodz streets, Zyd being Jew in Polish. Widzew fans, in retaliation, scribble a Star of David on their rivals' names, as if to say: It is you who are a Jew, not me.
Almost every street in Lodz has anti-Semitic graffiti. And while most of them have to do with soccer fans, quite a few of them have to do with nothing more than just blatant Jew-hate. "Send the Jews to gas chambers" is particularly jarring. Sometimes it is just a Star of David, as if saying: I really hate you. Others are bilingual, as in: "Juden raus." Lodz, the city where the Nazis first introduced the Jewish yellow star, according to local historians, cannot shake off its anti-Semitic bent.
Only one street, ul. Piotrkowska, Lodz's commercial street catering to high-end shoppers, is clean of anti-Semitic signs, courtesy of Lodz's city authorities. After all, if the Jewish tourists see this, they might not spend their dollars here. And Jews, people here tell me, are "very rich." So not to offend its Jewish tourists, the city of Lodz makes sure all anti-Semitic graffiti are painted over in ul. Piotrkowska. During the Reich's occupation, Piotrkowska Street was changed to Adolf Hitlerstrasse. Who would imagine that the only street clean of anti-Semitic proclamations would be Adolf Hitlerstrasse?
The EU, this entity that works overtime to reshape Poland into a modern and uniformed EU country, flexes its financial muscles at every turn. You want money? Abide by our rules. Why isn't the EU flexing its muscles when it comes to anti-Semitism? Why don't they say to the Polish government: You want new streets? Paint over your racist walls. Why is smoking a bigger offense to Europeans than anti-Semitism?
Do not for a second kid yourself that the anti-Semitic graffiti is just the handiwork of some bored teenagers with no indication as to what the public in general thinks. The mere fact that the authorities here steadily neglect to enact laws forbidding such racist displays is telling. No wonder that when you talk to people on the street you hear some of the most anti-Semitic delusions. When I speak to an older man I meet at random, he tells me that the sexual organ of Jewish women is different from that of all other women in the world. How different is it? "It looks like a cross," he says. A woman I meet here tells me, "Jesus Christ might have been a Jew. But the Virgin Mary? Never!"
With a government that is not bothered by public displays of "Juden Raus," why should the citizens not carry hateful thoughts in their hearts?
I meet Eva, a retired Polish journalist, and ask her why are there so many anti-Semitic slogans on display in her city. "Poland," she says, raising her voice, "is not more anti-Semitic than other European countries."
"Change" sounds like a nice word, but it all depends on what you change. Some things, I guess, are hard to change. Especially our ugliest of habits. You can have the newest of trains, but there is no guarantee that they will not take you to the hell of hate. You can sit at the nicest of cafés, but of what pleasure is it if the person next to you wishes that you would disappear into a gas chamber? You can have towers that reach the heavens, but if the front door says "Jews Out," how comfortable will you feel on the top floor?
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