“Jews are behind the pandemic,” chant crowd at Polish anti-vaccine protest

At an anti-vaccine protest in Poland yesterday, participants chanted that “Jews are behind the pandemic” and “rule the world”. Protesters also engaged in confrontations with the police, leading to three arrests.

Separately, the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) party – which has also been involved in protests against coronavirus restrictions – shared a video of one of its supporters saying that she “does not want Jewry” in Poland.

In Głogów, a town of 70,000 in western Poland, followers of the local football team on Sunday held the latest in a series of protests against restrictions and vaccines. “Stop the propaganda of a fourth wave”, “Stop sanitary segregation”, and “Stop vaccination coercion” were among the slogans.

“The government, under the guise of a ‘deadly virus’, is introducing illegal regulations aimed at limiting our freedom,” said the organisers, quoted by NaszeMiasto. They called on people to join “the fight for our common future” against “the globalists”.

At yesterday’s event, a man leading chanting through a megaphone asked the crowd: “We know who is behind this whole ‘plandemic’ and who rules the world, right?” In response, someone shouted “Jews”, and the man replied, “Of course it’s the Jews”.

The crowd then chanted together: “Every Pole can see today that behind the ‘plandemic’ are the Jews” (Dzisiaj każdy Polak widzi, że za plandemią stoją Żydzi).

Over 100 people attended the march, according to NaszeMiasto. Among them were families with children. Many carried white-and-red Polish flags or wore other patriotic symbols. Some also lit flares.

Participants also engaged in a confrontation with the police, shouting obscenities at officers and behaving aggressively towards them, forcing the police to retreat. “One day you will all be held to account,” warned the nationalist Twitter account that shared a video of the incident.

Three men were detained during the event, reports Wirtualna Polska: two for insulting police officers and another for damaging a police car.

The march follows others during the pandemic, often organised by nationalist and football-fan groups. In April, hundreds attended a protest in the city of Białystok. Last October, police detained 278 people at an anti-lockdown protest in Warsaw attended by thousands and at which four officers were injured.

Many such events have been supported and attended by leaders of Confederation, whose MPs have often refused to wear masks as required in parliament. The party earlier this year requested that prosecutors charge the prime minister and health minister for introducing an illegal lockdown.

One of Confederation’s leaders, Grzegorz Braun, who has a long history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, has likened the compulsory wearing of masks to how the Nazis forced Jews to wear armbands as a first step on the way to ghettoisation and then death.

Yesterday, in a separate incident, Confederation’s social media profiles shared a video of one of its supporters explaining why she likes the party. “Because I don’t want Jewry, I don’t want LGBT,” she said. “Only Confederation can ensure such normality.”

Following publication of the video, several firms cancelled contracts with the woman shown in it, Samuela Górska, who is a professional model, reports Wirtualne Media.

After the video began to draw criticism, it was taken down. But there has been no official comment from the party. Later, one of the party’s leaders, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, shared the video again on his personal Twitter account.

Ahead of elections in 2019, one of the party’s leading figures said that its main demands were: “We don’t want Jews, homosexuals, abortion, taxes and the EU.” During an election debate, another of its leaders held a yarmulke over the head of a minister and accused the government of “kneeling to Jews”.

Main image credit: technicznybdg/Twitter

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.