Poles cannot be blamed for Nazi death camps: World Jewish Congress head
PR dla Zagranicy
Julian Horodyski
15.05.2019 13:10
“Poles cannot and should not be blamed for the fact that Nazis chose Nazi-occupied Poland as the location for their death camps,” the head of the World Jewish Congress wrote in a Polish daily on Tuesday.
The former Nazi German Auschwitz death camp in southern Poland. Photo: pixabay.com
“I will always stand up to distorting history, regardless if caused by misunderstanding or ill will,” Ronald S. Lauder wrote in an op-ed for Rzeczpospolita daily.
Lauder described himself a “sincere friend of Poland, who visits this country often.”
He said, however, that he was worried about “people demonstrating and chanting anti-Semitic and anti-American slogans,” referring to a far-right march in Warsaw on Saturday against a US push for monitoring restitution of Jewish property seized under Nazi German occupation and communism.
He also criticised the burning of an effigy of Judas in Pruchnik, south-eastern Poland, in April.
“For generations, Poland had been a beating heart of Jewish spirituality and home for the majority of Jews of the Diaspora,” said Lauder.
He added he hoped for religious and political leaders in Poland to make a “strong statement against manifesting anti-Semitism.”
“We cannot allow for the ghosts of the past to rise again and lead to destruction of [that] which both our nations have built over years,” Lauder wrote.
Poland’s prime minister on Wednesday condemned what he called a “racist attack” on his country’s ambassador to Israel.
The envoy, Marek Magierowski, was physically and verbally assaulted while standing outside the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, according to a report by the Jerusalem Post.
The attack came amid a diplomatic spat between Poland and Israel.
(jh/gs)
Source: Rzeczpospolita