LATEST UPDATE: OCTOBER 1998
Despite the willingness of the Polish government to address manifestations of antisemitism in Poland, the continuing crisis over the crosses at Auschwitz is a cause for concern. The repeated antisemitic statements of Father Henryk Jankowski, which to some extent remain unchecked by the authorities (particularly the church), also prevent Polish-Jewish relations from developing in a more positive manner.
Demographic data
Total population: 38.8 million
Jewish population: 5,000-15,000 (about half in Warsaw)
Other minorities: 40,000 Roma; small German minority in the South-west; ethnic Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak and Lithuanian minorities in the South-east and East
Political data
Political system: parliamentary democratic republic with a bicameral national legislature (the Sejm is the lower house)
Head of state: in November 1995 Aleksander Kwaniewski, chairman of the reformed Communist party, Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej (SLD, Democratic Left Alliance), succeeded Lech Walesa as Poland's second democratically elected president since the collapse of Communism
Government: the parliamentary elections of 21 September 1997 ousted the ruling coalition of the SLD and the Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (PSL, Polish Peasants' Party, see Parties, organizations, movements), and brought the centre-right coalition Akcja Wyborcza Solidarnosci (AWS, Electoral Action Solidarity) - including liberals, anti-Communist trade unionists, Catholic nationalists and Prawica Narodowa (PN, National Right, see Parties, organizations, movements) - into power under Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. The results were as follows:
AWS: 34 per cent
SLD: 27 per cent (164 seats)
Unia Wolnosci (UW, Freedom Union), led by Leszek Balcerowicz, pioneer of Poland's free market reforms: 13 per cent (16 seats)
PSL: 7.31 per cent
Ruch Odbudowy Polski (ROP, Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland): 5.5 per cent
Other parties: a new opposition group, led by Janek Janiszewsk, the Conservative People's Party (SKL) was formed in January 1997, uniting the People's Christian Party (SzCh) and the Conservative Party (PK)
Next elections: November 2000 (presidential), September 2001 (parliamentary)
Economic data
GDP 1997: 453.3 billion zloties (US$152.3 billion)
GDP per capita 1997: US$3,930
Inflation 1997: 15 per cent, a drop of 4.9 per cent on the previous year (Financial Times)
Unemployment 1997: 11.5 per cent (Financial Times)
Currency: US$1=2.98 zloties
On the eve of the Second World War, Poland's Jewish community numbered 3.5 million, which represented 20 per cent of world Jewry. Since the Holocaust and several waves of emigration during the Communist period, only a tiny remnant of this ancient community remains.
Until the late eighteenth century the situation of the Jewish community in the Polish Commonwealth was, on balance, better than in most European countries. When Poland was divided up between Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary in 1795, inter-communal relations began to deteriorate as the foreign powers implemented a principle of divide et impera.
Modern Polish nationalism emerged in western Poland in the late nineteenth century in the form of the Endecja (National Democracy) movement. The Endecja promoted the identification of Polishness with Catholicism, using anti-Germanism to construe the 'external' enemy and antisemitism to define the 'internal' enemy.
During the period of the Second Republic (1918-39) Jews encountered increasing hostility from wide sections of the population. The late 1930s witnessed a wave of antisemitism orchestrated by the extra-parliamentary nationalist opposition and supported by a large section of the Catholic Church.
Following their occupation of Poland in September 1939, the Nazis attempted to murder the entire Jewish population. During this period Jews felt that the majority of ethnic Poles were indifferent to the Jewish fate. Although some Poles did help Jews to survive the Holocaust, most remained passive in the face of Nazi terror. Poland was the only country in Europe where the death penalty was imposed for assisting a person of Jewish origin.
Post-war hopes of an improved Polish-Jewish relationship were thwarted first by grassroots antisemitism, which reached its apogee in the Kielce pogrom of 1946 in which forty-six people died, and then by Communist-inspired antisemitism which culminated in the 'anti-Zionist' campaign of 1968. A similar strategy was used by the Communist Party against the political opposition in the 1970s and 1980s, when the leaders of the trade union Solidarnosc (Solidarity) were portrayed as a non-Polish element.
In the 1980s the Solidarity opposition began a re-evaluation of Polish history, especially of relations with Poland's ethnic minorities. Its political elite frequently condemned antisemitism, xenophobia and ultra-nationalism.
Antisemitic expressions did not disappear in Poland with the collapse of Communism. They resurfaced during the presidential campaign in late 1990. Since 1991 successive governments have repeatedly spoken out against antisemitism, and the use of antisemitic rhetoric has decreased in political circles.
In February 1998, 2,000 Polish Roma persecuted by the Nazis during the Second World War sought compensation from Germany.
Restitution
On 20 February 1997 the Sejm passed a law on the reclamation of Jewish communal property which permits the local Jewish community to submit claims for property which it owned prior to the Second World War. The law does not deal with private property or Jewish communal properties to which third parties had obtained title. A commission made up of three delegates from the ministry of internal affairs and three representatives of the Zwiazek Gmin Wyznaniowych Zydowskich (Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland) is responsible for implementing the law. Claims for restitution must be received by the year 2002. By August 1998 the (new) government had passed draft amendments to the law by which some pre-war foreign owners of property taken over by the state after the Second World War will not have the right to reclaim their property. The original law passed in August 1997 had given former owners priority of purchase over current users of the property.
In discussions with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in September 1997, Polish Foreign Minister Dariusz Rosati stated that twenty cases of communal property restitution had so far been brought before the commission. The procedures had been slowed by, among other things, the parliamentary elections. On 5 February 1998 Poland's new deputy prime minister and interior minister, Janus Tomaszewski, promised Jewish leaders that the new Polish government would press forward on issues of restitution to the Jewish community. He stated that the government would create a mechanism to cover expenses related to the identification and restitution of property.
On 2 March 1998 a synagogue in the town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz) which was seized under a 1946 Communist decree stripping Jewish communities and individuals of buildings and land was returned to the Jewish community. This is the first building to be returned to a Polish-Jewish community by the new government commission. Part of the synagogue will retain its religious function and part will be used for educational purposes. By March 1998 the commission had received fifty-eight claims.
On 15 June 1998 the Jewish community in Bielsko Biala agreed to accept compensation of 562,000 zloties (US$189,000) in exchange for renouncing its rights to a building which once housed its offices and is now the district law court. The agreement was signed in Warsaw by representatives of the community and the town before the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland.
Aggressive xenophobic and antisemitic attitudes are confined to a few marginal political parties and groups such as the far-right skinheads, whose strongholds are in Gdansk, Gdynia, Lublin and Wroclaw.
In recent years, surveys have shown that the main victims of verbal abuse have been Roma. The Rom community numbers around 40,000 persons and its leaders claim that it faces proportionately higher unemployment and has been harder hit by economic changes and restructuring than have ethnic Poles. The 1998 US Department of State report on human rights states that the number of reported physical assaults on Roma has been declining since the early 1990s.
Individuals of African, Asian or Arab extraction continue to experience occasional verbal abuse or other types of hostility. Cases of ethnic tension have been reported in south-western Poland, where the German ethnic minority is mainly concentrated, and in south-eastern Poland, where there is a significant Ukrainian minority.
The deputy minister for internal affairs and administration, Katarzyna Piekarska, announced in June 1997 that the prime minister had set up an inter-ministerial committee on national minorities. Jacek Kuron, who chairs the Sejm national and ethnic minorities committee, said the committee's task was 'to shape Poles' attitudes so that they can understand that Poland is also the homeland of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Slovaks and Germans'.
Before 1998 there were 360 political parties operating in Poland. Under the former law on registration of political parties, it was sufficient to collect fifteen signatures to apply for registration. From the beginning of 1998, however, amendments to the law have made it necessary to collect 1,000 signatures in order to register. All previously registered parties had to lodge new applications by June 1998 in accordance with the new law.
The far-right groupings that resort to aggressive racist, xenophobic and antisemitic rhetoric as their principal message are tiny and have little support among the population. Antisemitism is only one component of the ultra-nationalist discourse of such groups, which generally condemn everything that is alien. On occasion, however, even mainstream political parties tolerate similar rhetoric from their members.
In September 1997 twenty elected MPs were supported during the parliamentary election campaign by Radio Maryja, a Catholic station, which has frequently expressed antisemitic sentiments in its programmes. Marion Krzaklewski, leader of the ruling centre-right coalition AWS (see General background), is said to have good personal relations with Father Rydzyk, the founder of Radio Maryja.
PN (see General background), led by Krzystof Kawecki, is part of the ruling coalition, although only one of its representatives was elected in September 1997, while Kawecki himself received only a handful of votes in Warsaw. The party is keen to cultivate links with the far right in Western Europe, in particular with Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front national in France (see France).
Stronnictwo Narodowo-Demokratyczne (SND, National Democratic Party) is another far-right party which attempted to win parliamentary representation through an alliance with a mainstream grouping. The SND first joined the AWS and then left to form a coalition with the PSL (see General background). However, the PSL gained only 7 per cent of the vote, and its representation in parliament includes no members of the SND.
Stronnictwo Narodowe (National Party) and its youth organization, Mlodziez Wszechpolska (All-Polish Youth), despite their attempt to present a more moderate image during the 1997 election campaign, received only 1.36 per cent of the vote.
The ROP (see General background) is anti-Communist and nationalist, defending Poland in the face of western capital. The party includes antisemites such as Zygmunt Wrzodak, the chairman of the trade union Solidarity at the Ursus tractor factory; press statements issues by the factory frequently claim that the Polish government consists of 'Jewish Communists'. The ROP won just over 5 per cent of the vote in the September elections. On 26 April 1998 its supreme council issued a statement expressing gratitude to Cardinal Glemp and Prime Minister Buzek for 'defending the cross' at Auschwitz (see Religious antisemitism).
The Polska Wspolnota Narodowa-Polskie Stronnictwo Narodowe (PWN-PSN, Polish National Fellowship-Polish National Party) is led by Boleslaw Tejkowski, a former Communist. It publishes the paper Mysl narodowa polska (Polish National Thought) and claims a membership of 11,000. Its active members are mostly young skinheads. The PWN-PSN maintains links with Vladimir Zhirinovsky's Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (see Russia). In the September 1997 elections the PWN-PSN gained only 8,590 votes (0.07 per cent).
The Przymierze Samoobrona (PS, Self-Defence Alliance), founded in 1992 by the former Communist Andrzej Lepper, recruits supporters from within the peasant community. PS activists often ascribe to Jews responsibility for the economic hardships that have accompanied the reform process. In the first round of the 1995 presidential elections Lepper won 1.3 per cent of the vote.
The Polski Front Narodowy (PFN, Polish National Front) is led by Janusz Bryczkowski and claims 700 members. Founded in 1994, this neo-Nazi group has had little political success. Bryczkowski was unable to obtain the 100,000 signatures required for his official candidacy in the 1995 presidential election. In 1996 he was arrested for illegal operations in his extensive trade with Russia, and was tried in April 1997 (see Legal matters).
The far-right Real Politics Union (UPR) re-elected Stanislaw Michalkiewicz as its chairman at its party congress in March 1998. Abolition of personal income tax, corporate tax, inheritance and donation tax as of the year 2000, as well as restoration of the death penalty and the introduction of corporal punishment, were manifesto points.
Other marginal parties that employ antisemitic rhetoric are the Polskie Stronnictwo Narodowe 'Ojczyzna' (Polish National Fellowship 'Fatherland'), the Stronnictwo Narodowe 'Szczerbiec' (SNSz, National Party 'Szczerbiec'), the Polskie Odrodzenie Narodowe (PON, Polish National Renewal) and the Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski (NOP, National Rebirth of Poland). The NOP boycotted the September election and repeated its call for a 'national revolution'. On May Day 1998 several dozen NOP activists took part in demonstrations, shouting slogans such as 'End to Jewish occupation [of Poland!]', and clashed with left-wing demonstrators.
Since the late 1980s skinheads have constituted an important section of the membership of far-right Polish parties such as the PWN-PSN and the NOP. The neo-Nazi skinhead scene remains strong and is concentrated in urban centres, such as Gdansk, Gdynia, Lublin and Wroclaw. There are an estimated 10,000-20,000 neo-Nazi skinheads in Poland.
Former Polish neo-Nazi leader 'Robson' severed contact with neo-Nazi groups in early 1997. As the manager of Konkwista 88, a popular East European skinhead band, and founder of Aryski Front Przetrwania (AFP, Aryan Survival Front), he was a well-known figure in Poland. In 1997 he gave the Polish anti-fascist magazine Nigdy Wiecej (Never Again) details of the international contacts of Polish neo-Nazis and described attempts by far-right parties to recruit members from among the most violent neo-Nazi groups.
According to a report in the April 1997 issue of the British anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, the Urzad Ochrony Panstwa (UOP, Office for the Protection of the State) seized propaganda material and lists of members' addresses from the Polish section of the neo-Nazi music movement Blood and Honour (see United Kingdom). Following the raids arrests were made in Olsztyn, Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Wroclaw, Opole and other towns.
There have been several recent cases of desecration and vandalism of Jewish property, most of which remain unsolved.
In February 1997 a fire seriously damaged the entrance hall of Warsaw's only working synagogue, the Nozyk, which apparently resulted from an incendiary device thrown through a window. The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, which aims to preserve Jewish culture in Poland and has its headquarters adjacent to the synagogue, received a bomb threat two days earlier. The wooden door at the disused main entrance and another set of wooden doors were completely destroyed, and plaster fell off the blackened vestibule ceiling. Jewish community leaders invited Warsaw inhabitants to attend an evening service in a show of solidarity (see Countering antisemitism). A police spokesman told a press conference in March 1997 that the investigation did not concern any political grouping. No arrests have been made.
On 4 March 1997 twenty-nine windows in a centre belonging to the Towarzystwo Spoleczno-Kulturalne Zydow w Polsce (Sociocultural Association of Jews in Poland) in Zary (western Poland) were smashed. Police described the incident as 'a hooligan antic' and initiated an investigation.
In May 1997 a memorial at a Jewish cemetery in Staszow was defaced with anti-Jewish graffiti. The memorial had been unveiled only one week earlier. Two members of the so-called Historical Society, a local skinhead group, were arrested in connection with the crime. During the year tombstones were also reportedly defaced in Jewish cemeteries in Legnica and Proszowice.
In September 1997 a group of Israeli teenagers visitingPoland found antisemitic epithets on a grave in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. They also reported being spat at, cursed by Polish hooligans and having water poured on them from windows during their trip.
In the autumn of 1997 an Israeli youth delegation in the town of Kazimierz-Dolny had two firecrackers thrown at them and were subjected to verbal abuse.
Several days after Father Jankowski's October 1997 sermon (see Religious antisemitism) the fourteen-year-old son of a rabbi was beaten up in Gdansk by a seventeen-year-old skinhead, an assault believed to have been motivated by antisemitism. The attacker was questioned by police and the resulting investigation is still pending.
In February 1998 vandals desecrated nineteenth-century gravestones and a monument in the Jewish cemetery in Jaslo (Krosno, south-west Poland). Police maintain that the perpetrators were members of a local skinhead group who are also suspected of other crimes in the area.
In two attacks in May 1998 vandals damaged twenty-five tombstones in the old Jewish cemetery in Warsaw.
A new memorial to Jewish Holocaust victims was defaced with graffiti in Rzeszow in early July 1998. City officials endeavoured to clean the monument.
In further attacks at the end of July 1998 the grave of a former parliamentary speaker of the Second Polish Republic and thirty Jewish headstones were desecrated at Palmiry near Warsaw. During the Second World War the forest in Palmiry was the site of mass executions by the Nazis. The desecration was condemned by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek: 'This is a shocking act. In our country graves have always been honoured.' Buzek laid flowers at the damaged graves.
In January 1997 Father Henryk Jankowski, a former advisor to Lech Walesa and former chaplain of the Solidarity movement, was accused by the prosecutor's office of insulting people of Jewish origin (see Legal matters). The charges arose from comments he made during a sermon in June 1995 at which Walesa (then president) was present. Jankowski likened the Star of David to the hammer-and-sickle and swastika, and said the Polish people should not allow those who owed 'secret allegiance' to Israel or Russia to remain in the government. Despite the charges, Jankowski gave a further sermon in his parish (he enjoys considerable support from his parishioners), accusing the Polish authorities of excessive 'compliance' with Jewish demands which, in his opinion, was evident during the Polish prime minister's recent visit to Israel (see Countering antisemitism). He added that the Poles were being 'humiliated by a national minority' and were 'becoming an international laughing stock'.
In February 1997 Jankowski failed to appear at the Gdansk prosecutor's office: he explained during his Sunday sermon at St Brygida's Basilica in Gdansk that he had not received a copy of the experts' opinion on his statements which were the subject of the investigation. He also stated that accusations of antisemitism against him were part of a 'political spectacle' organized by the authorities: 'We already have an answer to who is ruling this country - the Jewish national minority and above all very bad people. I have nothing against Jews but, when it comes to those who are involved in this - one should not tolerate such a situation. This is reprehensible. We should feel like a free people, Poles in our own country.'
On 26 October 1997, following the parliamentary elections, Jankowski said in a sermon at St Brygida's that a Jewish minority 'cannot be accepted in the newly formed government, because the nation is afraid of that'. He continued: 'We must oppose all kinds of evil, all kinds of arrogance, such as that demonstrated by Bronislaw Geremek on television even before becoming minister of foreign affairs, which he should not be.' The archbishop of Gdansk, Msgr Tadeusz Goclowski, accused the priest of 'incompetence and a lack of concern for the public good' and of 'abusing his position as a priest for political ends'. Jankowski told Reuters news agency that there was no need for Poland to have ethnic minorities in government: 'This has nothing to do with antisemitism. We have over 400 MPs and there are plenty of qualified people at universities, so why should we have to resort to minorities?'
The secretary of the Polish Episcopate, Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, said Jankowski's outbursts were evidence of a 'pathological need to appear in the newspapers'. Jankowski was also criticized by President Kwaniewski and by the Polish branch of PEN. The president said such statements harmed Poland's image, and PEN said the statement harmed the country and the dignity of the Catholic Church. The municipal authorities of Breda in the Netherlands sent commemorative medals bearing Jankowski's likeness back to Poland in protest against his statements.
Jankowski complained that his sermon had been distorted by the media. He said he was speaking about society's fears of a takeover by a minority and that the UW party (see General background), which had proposed Geremek as foreign minister, had no right to speak on behalf of the nation. He added that all of his statements relating to political matters, such as those concerning, among other things, 'domination by a national minority of Jewish descent', were his private opinions.
On 3 November 1997 Gdansk Archbishop Goclowski prohibited Jankowski from giving sermons or making public statements. He was suspended for a year from his job as parish priest of St Brygida's. The archbishop said he would be allowed to resume his duties 'if he shows he has learned a lesson during his suspension' but denied he was being suspended for antisemitism. Rather, he said, he had suspended Jankowski for making political remarks which were out of place in church. Parishioners protested against Archbishop Goclowski's decision.
A day later the Gdansk Metropolitan Curia said Jankowski remained the parish priest of St Brygida's, but his duties as parish administrator and the responsibility for delivering sermons had been transferred to Fr Tomasz Czapiewski (a professor at the Gdansk seminary and a lecturer at Gdansk University).
Nonetheless on 9 November 1997 Jankowski was a speaker at a ceremony for the presentation of Polonia Mater Nostra Est decorations, awarded by the Social Foundation for Remembrance of the Polish Nation to those who have rendered particular service to the Polish people and state. He spoke of waging 'a great war to keep our national visiting card pure, legible and white', and of fighting 'against all the evil which is rampant on Polish soil'.
In December 1997 the Gdansk prosecutor declined to begin an investigation into the sermon delivered by Jankowski on 26 October on the basis that there was insufficient evidence that an offence had been committed.
In March 1998 the chairman of the Polish Episcopate's commission for dialogue with Judaism, Bishop Stanislaw Gadecki, told the Catholic News Agency that the Polish nation had been unjustly accused of antisemitism after 1968 (see Antisemitic legacy and Countering antisemitism). He said that the events of March 1968 were not an expression of Polish, but of party, antisemitism and it was preposterous to level an accusation against all Poles. The nation was not aware of this 'party in-fighting' nor did it take an eager part in it, according to the Bishop.
In December 1997 crosses and Stars of David left by maintenance workers in the mid-1980s were removed from the area adjacent to Auschwitz. However, following continuing Jewish protests against the presence of Catholic symbols on the site, the Polish government announced on 19 February 1998 that the cross commemorating a 1979 Papal mass and a figure of the Virgin Mary would also be removed from the so-called gravel pit, adjacent to Auschwitz and the buildings of the former convent. (The convent building was vacated in 1993 having been a source of controversy for several years.) In March 1998 Carmelite nuns handed over the rights of the former cloister to the state - an act for which they will receive 1 million zloties (US$335,600) compensation - although the lease for the land, which includes the gravel pit, technically belongs to the Stowarzyszenie Ofiar Wojny (SOW, War Victim's Association, see below).
At the same time Polish ex-servicemen's associations appealed to the government and parliament to defend the cross. Ryszard Bender, chairman of the Lublin branch of the Klub Intelektualistów Katolickich (KIK, Catholic Intellectuals Club), demanded that the culture minister, Joanna Wnuk-Nazarowa, be brought before the state tribunal for having previously ordered the removal of crosses from the site of Birkenau. According to the Polish news agency PAP, Bender also said: 'In a sovereign Poland no minority pressure group will force its views [on us].' At a news conference on 15 March, Antoni Macierewicz, former cabinet minister and leader of the ROP (see Parties, organizations, movements) said that if the cross were removed it would be an act of 'religious profanation' and 'national humiliation'.
At the end of March 1998 the bishop of St John's cathedral in Warsaw celebrated mass in defence of the cross at Auschwitz. In his sermon he said that the prayers of the church in Poland would help to save the religious symbol. He added that Catholics were dealing with people of 'bad will' and that many publications about the Second World War only presented the losses of other nationalities but 'it is we [the Poles] who are the most wronged'. The following day, the primate of Poland, Cardinal Glemp said during mass: 'The cross has stood and will stand at Auschwitz. Many people have not liked and do not like the Eiffel Tower, but that is no reason to move or reconstruct it. In the same way, the cross at Auschwitz must not be the subject of bargaining, for it is among believers for whom it is salvation. We simply like this cross.' In response, Pinchas Menacham Joskowicz, chief rabbi of Poland, repeated the demand that the cross be removed, reiterating that Auschwitz is an 'extra-territorial' site and that no religious symbols should be present there.
In April 1998 Prime Minister Buzek sent an open letter to residents of the region stating that any decisions connected with the Auschwitz museum site (in Oswiecim) 'would be agreed with the local clergy and the local community'. He also wrote that representatives of many Jewish organizations had informed the government that they had not asked for the cross to be removed: 'This is being demanded only by small, extreme groups, which have no mandate to represent the Jewish community.'
Also in April members of the Zwiazek Zolnierzy Narodowych Sil Zbrojnych (ZZNSZ, Union of Soldiers of the National Armed Forces), a group of ex-servicemen, opposed the removal of the cross at their general assembly.
By April the 'affair' had escalated to a matter of national and international concern and interviews with government, opposition and church officials were reported and debated in the popular media.
During the 1998 March of the Living in April (see Countering antisemitism), pickets holding placards stating 'Defend the Cross' and 'Keep Jesus at Auschwitz' protested at the gravel pit, the site of the cross.
On 9 June 1998 the Oswiecimskiego Przymierza w Obronie Papieskiego Krzyza (Social Committee for the Defence of the Papal Cross in Oswiecim) began a round-the-clock vigil at the cross lest it be moved. On 31 May it said it had information that the cross was to be removed on Corpus Christi (10 June). On 1 July Kazimierz Switon, a member of the committee who had been on hunger strike for over two weeks, said he was 'prepared to starve to death in defence of that cross'.
On 5 July 1998 several hundred people celebrated mass at the site of the cross. The mass was dedicated to eighty Polish political prisoners murdered at the gravel pit by the Nazis in July 1941. In his sermon Father Adolf Chojnacki said: 'Polish blood was spilt in this place and it must therefore belong to Poles and Christians . . . That does not mean that we want to take something away from the Jews that they have a right to. We must pray however, that the Polish and Jewish peoples base their relations on the truth and not on lies.'
At the end of July Switon ended his hunger strike after forty-two days, on the instruction of church officials. At an impromptu press conference he appealed for visitors to bring crosses to the gravel pit. Within days a second three-metre cross was erected at the site by the Chaplaincy of the Working People of Gliwice. It was surrounded by fifty small crosses. Father Jan Sieminski, who has links with Radio Maryja (see Parties, organizations, movements), was instrumental in their erection. Following the appearance of these further crosses, Miles Lerman, chairman of the council of the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and, later, the Israeli Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, called for their immediate removal. A third three-metre larchwood cross was erected on 1 August by members of the Katowice-based Ruch Obywatelski 'Polski Slask' (ROPS, Civic Movement for 'Polish Silesia'). During the month of August the dispute continued to escalate, and became a battle of statements from opposition politicians, the Catholic Church and interested parties abroad. The number of crosses on the site also continued to escalate. According to plans of members of the Social Committee for the Defence of the Papal Cross in Oswiecim, 152 crosses are to be erected at the gravel pit to symbolize the number of Polish political prisoners executed there by the Nazis.
On 20 August 1998 the UOP was reportedly analysing intelligence about the dispute over the crosses. The government also gave notice of termination on the lease of the site to the SOW (see above) as, they stated, 'what is taking place there is tarnishing the authority of the state'. SOW chairman Mieczyslaw Janosz claimed in a press conference on 21 August that Jews had committed crimes of genocide under Communism and spoke of the 'aggression of the Jewish attempt to take over the entire camp [site of Auschwitz]'. The SOW are refusing to leave the gravel pit site, and the Polish treasury will have to sue the organization in order to regain control of the ground.
The results of an opinion poll carried out by the Polish agency Demoskop (on 7-10 August on a sample of 968 adult Poles) show that 73 per cent of respondents wanted the Papal cross to remain at the gravel pit. At the same time, 48 per cent of those polled criticized the placing of new crosses there. Thirteen per cent of the respondents supported the removal of all the crosses from the site.
In July 1997 the Israeli association of Resovian Jews protested to the editors of the monthly Glos Rzeszowa (Voice of Rzeszow) about the article 'I am an antisemite', which was published in March. The author, Stanislaw Szczepanski, editor-in-chief of the monthly, described an alleged ritual murder of a Polish child by Jews and declared that 'Zionism is also guilty through its silent approval of the murder of thousands of its own people'. Intellectuals from Rzeszow sent a statement to the press condemning the article.
In February 1998 the antisemitic content of a book entitled '250 Amusing Quizzes' came to light in a programme broadcast by Radio Zet. Antisemitic jokes from the book, which was published in Warsaw by Infopress Ltd and had been on sale in a school shop in Poznan, were repeated on air and listeners were invited to ring in with their comments. According to an article in a February edition of the Jewish newspaper Slowo Zydowski , among the 83 people who called the radio programme in response, 63 were scandalized and 23 either said there was nothing offensive about those jokes or approved of them wholeheartedly. The programme producer, Janusz Weiss, filed a complaint against the publisher at the public prosecutor's office. The chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on National Minorities, Jacek Kuron, said he also intended to take the case to the prosecutor's office.
A government poll published in January 1997 found nearly one-quarter of the Poles surveyed were strongly antisemitic, 56 per cent were opposed to antisemitism and 20 per cent were somewhere in between.
A new Polish constitution, approved by the Sejm in April 1997 and ratified in a national referendum in May, came into force in October. It includes a ban on anti-democratic parties and other organizations which promote neo-Nazism, fascism and racial hatred.
Kielce pogrom
In January 1997 the justice minister, Leszek Kubicki, announced that, as a result of a government investigation by the Main Committee Investigating Crimes against the Polish Nation, which began in 1992, four Polish former Communist security officials would be charged with failing to take appropriate action during the Kielce pogrom of 1946 (see Antisemitic legacy). Similar cases were dropped against four other former security officers who are deceased. Nine people who allegedly took part in the pogrom were executed after a court sentenced them in a summary trial days after the pogrom took place.
In October 1997, nine months later, the committee made their findings public. While it had found no evidence that the pogrom was instigated by the authorities - or in fact by the Soviet Union - who, it said, showed inexplicable incompetence during the events, the committee confirmed that police and soldiers took part in the murders and plunder. Twenty-four volumes of investigation records were then turned over to the Kielce prosecutor's office.
At the end of March 1998 the Kielce prosecutor's office said it did not agree with the inconclusive nature of the committee's findings, and returned its documentary evidence for further investigation. It was not until an interview on TV Polonia satellite service on 8 July that the basis for the return of these documents to the committee became clear. Zbigniew Wassermann, the prosecutor supervising the investigation, declared that the committee should take into account other versions of the events leading up to the pogrom, for example the possibility that the 'Jews themselves provoked the event in order to stimulate immigration to Palestine'.
Father Jankowski
In January 1997 charges against Father Henryk Jankowski arising from his 1995 sermon (see Religious antisemitism) were reinstated. In March 1998 he was sentenced to two years' probation and fined 1,000 zloties (US$336).
According to Jacek Hyla, press spokesman of the provincial court in Gdansk, a man and his two sons from Czestochowa brought a suit in the regional court in Gdansk on 23 February 1998 accusing Jankowski of slander. They alleged that in Rome on 6 November 1997 Jankowski declared publicly that he 'said aloud what the whole Polish nation thinks - not by mistake, but out of conviction'. The plaintiffs deny, as representatives of the Polish nation, that they share the views of Jankowski, including statements he made about Jews, and have accused him of slandering them. Hyla reported that the court had ordered Jankowski to pay 200 zloties for each of the plaintiffs (total 600 zloties, US$200), and that only after it was paid could a date be fixed for the court case.
Trials and prosecutions
In April 1997 a court in Olsztyn adjourned the trial of Janusz Bryczkowski, the leader of the PFN and a former PS activist (see Parties, organizations, movements). He was charged with defrauding the Olsztyn Agricultural Market Agency. At the initial hearing Bryczkowski said: 'When I was taken into custody I was suspected of being a fascist or a Nazi . . . I can firmly state I am a national socialist and I shall start a fight against this Jewish system, a fight like nobody in this country has yet imagined.'
In January 1997 Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, then prime minister, made the first state visit by a Polish premier to Israel where he gave assurances that he would fight against xenophobia and antisemitism in Poland, and defended the property reclamation law (see Legacy of the Second World War), which both the Israeli parliament and a group of Polish Jews in Tel Aviv had condemned. Following their condemnation, Sejm members raised the issue of 'the anti-Polish behaviour of Jewish communities' at a parliamentary sitting on 6 February 1997. The foreign affairs minister, Dariusz Rosati, 'admitted' that critical, hostile and emotional addresses against the Polish authorities had taken place, but said that the prime minister had responded to the attacks with resolve. Nevertheless, a representative of the Non-party-bloc in Support of Reforms (BBWR) representative stated that one element was missing in the whole 'affair': an official stand by the Polish authorities.
In a television interview on the 8 February 1997 Cimoszewicz reiterated that Jewish property would be returned to communal institutions in Poland and not to international Jewish organizations. Regarding Polish attitudes towards Jews, he said: 'when I speak about some stereotypes that should have been destroyed, that should be changed, it is unfortunately still existing a negative stereotype of Jew among many Poles. I shouldn't say that among the majority, but many. And on the other side we can't accept that kind of, let's say, theory or opinion broadly known in the world that it was not a coincidence that the Holocaust happened in Poland. There is a kind of allusion that it could happen only in Poland and it is something that we denying [as said], that we can't accept and that we treat as a kind of stereotype of Poles that has to be changed.'
Following the attack on the Nozyk synagogue in Warsaw in February 1997 (see Antisemitic incidents), Jewish community leaders invited Warsaw inhabitants to an evening service. Several hundred filled the synagogue, including Warsaw's mayor Marcin Swiecicki and deputies, and the German and US ambassadors. The attack was condemned by, among others, President Kwaniewski and the secretary of the Catholic Episcopate, Tadeusz Pieronek. The president said the attack was 'an act of barbarism' inconsistent with 'Polish culture, the tradition of tolerance and respect towards places of worship'.
Also in February the then interior minister, Leszek Miller, visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC during a two-day visit to the USA. He discussed the recently-adopted Polish law on the attitude of the state towards the Jewish religious communities.
In March 1997 meetings convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council were held in Warsaw and Oswiecim concerning the implementation of the Auschwitz Programme, a scheme to preserve the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps while assisting the development of Oswiecim. Among those present at the meetings were representatives of the president of Poland, the Polish government, local authorities of Oswiecim and surrounding communities, the International Council of the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the AJC, the Lauder Foundation and Yad Vashem. The agreement, signed on 5 March, was reached after year-long talks following a decision - later reversed - to build a shopping mall near the former death camp.
In September 1997 a new Roman Catholic church of St Joseph was consecrated in the vicinity of the former Auschwitz concentration camp. The church was built on the initiative of the Italian Roman Catholic Church in memory of 40,000 Italians murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Cardinal Camillo Ruini said the church was a kind of 'theology-in-stone' of Auschwitz, a place where Christians, Jews and believers of other religions had died. Prayers were said for all victims of Nazism, irrespective of religion.
Also in September 1997 a Holocaust memorial was unveiled in Wyszkow, a small town near Warsaw. The cost of constructing the monument (i.e. US$60,000) came from private donors (including the families of several former Wyszkow Jews). The initiative was organized by the US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.
In a long article published in the 15-16 November issues of the Polish newspapers Tygodnik Powszechny and Gazeta Wyborcza, Sanislaw Musial, former secretary of the Polish Episcopate's commission for dialogue with Judaism, strongly condemned the sin of antisemitism and Father Jankowski's antisemitic statements. The article, entitled 'Black is black', also referred to the inappropriate reaction of church authorities to antisemitism and criticized the absence of any widespread protest by the Polish political and cultural establishment.
The exchange programme for young Jewish political and communal leaders organized by the AJC continued to run successfully. The programme enables American professors of Jewish studies to teach at Catholic seminaries and Polish academics to teach at Jewish colleges in the USA.
On 17 January 1998 the Roman Catholic Church marked a 'Day of Judaism' for the first time. It is intended to be an annual celebration, including special masses and meetings in churches and synagogues. Bishop Stanislaw Gadecki, head of the conference of the Polish Episcopate's commission for dialogue with Judaism, said: 'This day is meant to be an occasion for meetings between Christians and Jews, because where people do not meet there grows a great deal of misunderstanding, of dislike and a good deal of everything that finally leads to hatred.'
On 5 February following a meeting of the International Council of the State Oswiecim [Auschwitz] Museum, Polish and Jewish leaders agreed to sign a plan on developing and preserving the sites of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Miles Lerman, chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, called the agreement a 'very important moment' for Polish-Jewish relations.
Also in February 1998 twenty-seven Poles from Warsaw were honoured in Israel by being named 'Righteous among the Nations of the World' for risking their lives to help Jews during the Second World War.
In March 1998 city officials in the town of Plonsk announced a competition for historical research on Polish-Jewish relations.
Also in March 1998, at a ceremony to present the Order Bialego Orle (Order of the White Eagle) to former anti-Communist activists Jacek Kuron (see Racism and xenophobia) and Karol Modzelewski, President Kwaniewski announced that he would restore Polish citizenship to Jews forced to leave Poland after March 1968. Between 12,000 and 20,000 Jews fled Poland at that time (see Antisemitic legacy). A dozen Jews will have their citizenship restored. Kwaniewski stated: 'Today we have to say clearly: March 1968 was a disgraceful chapter in Polish history. Many people were wronged, many values were trampled on . . . The darkest and vilest stereotypes in Polish tradition were brought out . . . And this recollection contains a warning to all of us.' He also said of the Jews: 'It is not they who abandoned Poland. Poland abandoned them. We must put this right.' On 8 March Kwaniewski unveiled a plaque at the Warsaw train station to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the March 1968 campaign. The ceremony was attended by the mayor of Warsaw and Israel's ambassador to Poland.
In April 1998 the tenth March of the Living was led by Polish Prime Minister Buzek and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Some 7,000 Jews took part. In his address Buzek said Auschwitz was the place 'where Jews and Poles suffered separately, even though they died together'. He continued: 'The generation of witnesses and victims is moving into the past. There are voices questioning the very existence of these extermination camps. History is being twisted. Increasingly more expedient simplifications are being used, and they are producing falsehood as well as unfair anti-Polish or antisemitic generalizations. Honest historical study and knowledge of the facts are imperative.'
Also in April 1998 Marek Edelman, a leader of the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising, was honoured with Poland's highest award.
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Institute for Jewish Policy Research 2002
