Poland’s education minister says he supports the idea of only Polish guides being allowed to show visitors around the site of the former German-Nazi camp of Auschwitz, which is located in what is now Poland. His remarks come amid a dispute between Poland and Israel over Holocaust tours for Israeli youths.
The minister, Przemysław Czarnek, also called for a “copy” of the Auschwitz museum to be created near Berlin, as a reminder that it was a German camp. In the same interview, he claimed that “destructive LGBT ideology” causes depression and suicide among young Poles.
Israel has cancelled Holocaust education trips to Poland, claiming its government "wanted to dictate what was and wasn’t allowed to be taught".
A Polish deputy foreign minister says the trips currently "strengthen false stereotypes" and "require changes" https://t.co/DBiASjOdTS
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 16, 2022
Czarnek, a controversial ultraconservative figure appointed as education minister in 2020, was speaking to news website Onet, which asked him, in the context of the dispute with Israel, why he supports the idea that German death camps located in Poland should only be visited with Polish guides.
“Since we use our state money to run museums that show the bestiality of German concentration camps, [which is] so easily distorted in the West and in Israel, we are responsible for the content that is passed on there,” responded the minister. “I am an absolute supporter of our guides leading these tours.”
“If you were to ask young people from Israel today who is responsible for the Holocaust, I assure you that you will receive an answer that, as a Pole, will not be pleasant for you, but above all it will be an answer inconsistent with the reality of the Holocaust,” he added.
One in five Poles say it is good that WWII resulted in fewer Jews living in Poland, finds a new study.
The findings also show that certain antisemitic stereotypes remain widespread in Poland, and that many Poles' knowledge about the Holocaust is limited https://t.co/lwvbK6m3QQ
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 28, 2021
Many in Poland feel that Poles are unfairly held responsible for atrocities against Jews that were carried out by the German Nazis in occupied Poland – for example through used of the false and misleading term “Polish camps” to describe facilities such as Auschwitz (where ethnic Poles were the second largest group of victims after Jews).
During Holocaust education trips to Poland, “young [Israelis] are kept away from Poles because they were told that [Jews] are not liked here, that it was dangerous here,” Czarnek told Onet. “Many of them think that, since the camps are [now] in Poland, that the camps are Polish. [That is] a lie.”
This is why it is “so important” that such groups “have Polish guides who know the history and context very well”, continued the minister. “I cordially invite everyone from Israel, the US, Sweden and other countries…We want them to keep coming here…And they can use our guides.”
Under current regulations, groups visiting Auschwitz are required to engage a “guide-educator” licenced by the museum, though they can be of any nationality.
During the interview, Czarnek also said that he “would suggest making a copy of the museums of Auschwitz and Lublin [Majdanek] concentration camp near Berlin, because they are German concentration camps”.
Figures from Poland’s national-conservative ruling camp have often accused Germany of seeking to distort history in an effort to blur responsibility for the Holocaust, including by placing the blame on Poles.
In 2020, the spokesman for Poland’s security services said that Germany was carrying out “coherent and systematic information activities” in order to “denationalise the crimes from the time of the war”. Last year a Polish court ordered German public broadcaster ZDF to apologise for presenting Polish resistance fighters as antisemites.
Many historians, domestic opposition figures and Israeli politicians, however, in turn accuse the Polish authorities of themselves trying to whitewash history by avoiding references to crimes by Poles against Jews during the war and instead focusing exclusively on the heroic actions of those who helped Jews.
In his interview with Onet, Czarnek was also asked about whether anti-LGBT rhetoric from senior figures in the government could cause depression and suicide among young Poles.
The education minister, however, said that it is actually “all the fault of propaganda and LGBT ideology, which is destructive to humans…[of] gender ideology being forced into the heads of young people”.
“If stupid ideas are pushed into the minds of children, and their sexuality and identity are mixed up, then gender ideologists and sex educators should not be surprised later that children do such things because of them,” he continued. “Children should be protected from moral corruption.”
Czarnek has a long history of attacks on “LGBT ideology”, which he claims “comes from the same roots as Nazism”. Those who “promote such deviancy do not have the same rights as people who behave in accordance with [accepted] standards”, said the minister last year.
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.
