Polish foreign minister condemns racism and antisemitism following series of incidents

Poland's foreign minister has spoken out against racism and antisemitism in response to recent cases of anti-immigrant rhetoric and Holocaust revisionism.

"Anti-immigrant hysteria harms Poland. It awakens the worst demons," said Radosław Sikorski in a video posted on social media. “And Holocaust denial excludes us from the ranks of civilized nations.”

As an example, Sikorski cited an incident this week in which foreign artists – including from Spain, Senegal, Serbia and India – who had come to a folk festival in the Polish city of Zamość were subjected to verbal abuse. Some residents demanded that police intervene to stop “immigrants walking around the market square”.

Zamość's mayor, Rafał Zwolak, condemned the situation, which he said was “the result of the actions of some politicians and groups who are spreading fear about illegal immigrants and inciting hatred…to build their political capital on fear.”

Earlier this month, a Senegalese dance troupe visiting another folk festival in the town of Gorzów Wielkopolski were the subject to angry videos shared on social media falsely claiming they were migrants.

Among those to make such posts were local politicians from the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is the main national opposition and has accused the government of being too soft on immigration .

“We have the right to control our borders, to know who is legally in Poland,” said Sikorski, who is part of a government that has introduced a tough new migration policy . “But there is no consent for the escalating campaign of racism and antisemitism.”

As examples of the latter, Sikorski pointed to two recent cases of Holocaust revisionism. One was the erection of a new, unofficial memorial at the site of the Jedwabne pogrom, in which hundreds of Jews were burned alive during World War Two.

Plaques at the memorial, which was installed just before Thursday's anniversary of the pogrom, questioned official findings that Poles carried out the massacre and contained negative claims about Jews.

Sikorski then noted that, on Thursday, far-right politician Grzegorz Braun had declared that the gas chambers at Auschwitz are “fake” . Braun also claimed that Jews have been guilty of ritually murdering Christians.

“Captain Pilecki did not volunteer for Auschwitz so that some score could now question his report for political gain,” said the foreign minister, referring to the Polish wartime hero, Witold Pilecki , who voluntarily had himself imprisoned at Auschwitz to gather intelligence on the German-Nazi camp.

Sikorski warned that the past shows how hateful words can quickly turn into action. “The history of Germany teaches us that racial hatred ends in gas chambers,” he declared.

"Poland has always been a hospitable country. Poles are better than those who hound strangers and fuel the spiral of hatred. I appeal to people to come to their senses," said the foreign minister.

Braun's remarks have been widely condemned, including by PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, who wrote that it is “unacceptable to question the Holocaust and what happened at Auschwitz.”

“It shows a lack of basic respect for the victims who lost their lives there and contributes to the policy of falsifying history,” he added. “Grzegorz Braun's statements on this matter only confirm that he is acting under foreign influence to the detriment – very serious detriment – of our country.”

Prosecutors have announced they have launched an investigation into whether Braun violated Poland's law against denying Nazi crimes, which carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

Last year, Sikorski walked out of a television interview after the presenter asked him whether the ancestry of his Jewish-American wife, journalist and historian Anne Applebaum, would harm his chances as a potential presidential candidate.

Main image credit: MFA Poland/Flickr (under CC BY-NC 4.0 )