Draft Bill to Limit WW2 Property Restitution Claims in Poland Leads to Rise in Antisemitism in the Media
On June 24th, the Polish parliament passed a draft bill related to World War 2 property restitution claims. As reported by Reuters, the bill is “expected to make it harder for Jews to recover property seized by Nazi German occupiers and kept by postwar communist rulers”. The report continues: “Poland was home to one of the world's biggest Jewish communities until it was almost entirely wiped out by the Nazis during World War Two. Jewish former property owners and their descendants have been campaigning for compensation since the fall of communism in 1989.” The proposed bill will now be discussed in the Senate.
Screenshot from Politico
This has been a much-discussed issue in Poland over the past few weeks, with media coverage and foreign diplomats commenting on the draft bill. Get The Trolls Out! Polish partner Never Again Association identified several worrying antisemitic incidents which occurred in the country in June:
Screenshot from nacjonalista.pl
During a TV Republika broadcast, commentator Rafal Ziemkiewicz criticized the position of Israeli and US diplomats in Warsaw who had publicly supported restitution of property belonging to Holocaust survivors. He called the new FM of Israel Yair Lapid “a scoundrel who hates Poland”. He claimed Holocaust-era restitution claims are “the work of the New York mafia, the big business of extorting compensations from Poland (...) which is supported by the Israeli government and the US embassy”, suggesting the existence of a criminal international Jewish conspiracy against Poland. He also questioned the facts of the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941. He said: “A new confrontation with international Jewry is coming up and we must be ready for this confrontation”.
A piece on nacjonalista.pl, a news portal linked with the extreme-right party National Rebirth of Poland (NOP), stated: “The Jewish offensive against Poland is well underway. Few people pay attention to it, because we live in times of the virus hysteria, but the jews [sic] don’t accept the fact that Poland avoids alleged responsibility for the holocaust. (…) Everybody wants us to pay ransom to the jews. The question is who will speak up in our defense? (…) Maybe it’s time to remind the jews of their own history? (…) Will the jews be polite enough to acknowledge and apologize for their crimes against Poland and the Polish people? (…) Will anybody remind this to the jews? Will we shut their mouths through historical truth?”
On Polskie Radio 24, a state-owned radio channel, a broadcast was aired which was based on historical falsehoods, trivializing and distorting the Holocaust. On air, Wojciech Reszczynski said: “What happened during WW2 in Poland? (…) For the first two years of the war, the Jewish circles, so numerous in Poland, could peacefully live and construct the ghettoes, because the Jews built the ghettos for themselves for their own money and using labor of their own people, because they wanted to isolate themselves and create safe spaces for themselves, they convinced themselves they would obtain autonomy from the Germans, and they would freely function in those isolated territories. For the first two years, the Jews have not really suffered much during the occupation, it was the Polish people who were exterminated.”
On Wrealu24, a far-right online TV channel, Robert Winnicki MP (the leader of the National Movement party) was interview by Krzysztof Lech Luksza. During the interview, Winnicki called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador from Poland as well as breaking off relations between Poland and the State of Israel "because of the smear campaign conducted by Israel against us". He referred to "Jewish accusations and slander". Winnicki questioned facts about the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom, calling it "a spiraling lie". He called for emphasizing "the role of the Jewish collaborators in the extermination of their own nation, we must talk about it without regard for political correctness", which is clear Holocaust distortion.
In another case on TV channel Wrealu24, Maciej Dybowski was interview by host Piotr Szlachtowicz. He stated: "There is a real threat from the side of Israel. The greed of the Jewish circles has been known for many decades. The whole myth, the religion of the Holocaust, which has forced many states and also many banks to pay money to those who have no right to demand any money (…). If anybody has any right to compensations it is Poland and not the state of Israel."
Screenshot from wRealu24
It is to be expected that the media would cover the proposed bill as it is newsworthy; however, there is no excuse for using this piece of news to spread antisemitism. As we can see from the cases outlined above, this was not one isolated incident. The antisemitic coverage of the bill was present on numerous different platforms and media formats, and thus the reach was immense. The issue of WW2 property restitution has been debated in Poland for quite some time. During the presidential elections in 2020 the topic was tactically used by several opponents, with candidate Rafał Trzaskowski being asked on state television whether he planned to “fulfill Jewish demands”.
Levels of antisemitism in Poland run significantly higher than in other European countries. A study conducted in 2019 by ADL found that 45% of Polish adults harbor antisemitic views. Out of those surveyed, 62% responded with ‘probably true’ to the question: “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust”. Media coverage seems to only play into these tropes further and fuel antisemitic views in Polish society. Normalizing hatred on mainstream platforms can have detrimental real-life effects which only sow further divisions in society.
