Poland protests after Israeli newspaper calls president-elect a “Holocaust revisionist”

Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s foreign ministry has protested after an Israeli newspaper called Karol Nawrocki, the right-wing opposition candidate who won the Polish presidential election on Sunday, a “Holocaust revisionist”.

The ministry told the Times of Israel that its description is “unfair” and that Poland’s president-elect “should not be referred to in this way”. Meanwhile, the incoming US ambassador to Poland, who lived in Israel for ten years, has also criticised the newspaper’s coverage of Nawrocki.

On both Sunday and Monday, the Times of Israel, the largest English-language Israeli news outlet, published articles with headlines referring to Nawrocki as a Holocaust revisionist and saying that he had “made Holocaust revisionism part of his campaign”.

As evidence, the newspaper referred to efforts Nawrocki had made to woo voters from an antisemitic radical-right candidate, Grzegorz Braun, who was eliminated in the first round of the election.

In a response to questions from Braun about his attitude to Jewish issues, Nawrocki said that he “will defend the good name of Poland and Poles against all the disgusting attacks by people such as [Jan] Grabowski, [Jan] Gross and [Barbara] Engelking”.

The latter three are Polish Holocaust scholars who have produced research highlighting the role that Poles played in crimes against Jews during and after World War Two. Their work has been criticised by the Polish right, which claims that it paints a false picture of Poles as responsible for the Holocaust.

In an article published on Saturday, ahead of the election, the Times of Israel also noted that Nawrocki is currently head of Poland’s state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which it said has “advanced nationalist narratives about the Holocaust”.

In 2023, Nawrocki, as IPN president, sent a letter to US-owned Polish broadcaster TVN criticising “scandalous” and “disgraceful” remarks made by Engelking during an appearance on the station, in which she suggested that Poles did little to help Jews during the war.

Engelking “omitted important elements…such as the help the Polish underground state [provided] to Jews fighting in the [Warsaw Ghetto] Uprising”, wrote Nawrocki. Her comments are “a slap in the face to the victims of the German criminal policy of extermination: Jews and Poles”.

In its recent articles, the Times of Israel also pointed to the fact that, during his campaign, Nawrocki said that, if he won the election, he would end the longstanding annual practice of inviting Polish-Jewish leaders to the presidential palace for a ceremony to light Hanukkah candles.

On Tuesday, broadcaster RMF first reported that the Polish embassy in Israel had sent a letter to the Times of Israel protesting against its description of Nawrocki as a Holocaust revisionist.

That was later confirmed by foreign ministry spokesman Paweł Wroński, who told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that “we sent a letter to the editor indicating that the use [of the term ‘Holocaust revisionist’] is unfair, imprecise and [Nawrocki’s remarks] refer to academic discussions that are taking place in Poland”.

Wroński emphasised that the ministry is not taking sides in such debates. Though he did not mention it, the Polish government was also opposed to the election of Nawrocki, who is aligned with the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party.

“We are only saying that the president-elect should not be referred to in this way,” said Wroński. “We accept the editors’ right to make an evaluation, but this evaluation using this particular term evokes – especially in Poland – very dangerous associations.”

The Times of Israel‘s coverage of Nawrocki also drew criticism from Thomas Rose, who has been nominated by Donald Trump as the new US ambassador to Poland. Rose is a Jewish American who lived in Israel for ten years, during which time he was the publisher of The Jerusalem Post.

Sharing a link on social media to a Times of Israel article about Nawrocki, Rose wrote: “What an utter and libelous DISGRACE this article is. SHAME on TOI [Times of Israel].”

The Trump administration openly supported Nawrocki’s presidential bid, with homeland security secretary Kristi Noem last week making a speech in Poland calling on Poles to elect him and labelling his government-aligned rival Rafał Trzaskowski “an absolute train wreck of a leader”.

Poland and Israel have regularly clashed over Holocaust history, with some in Israel accusing Poland of seeking to whitewash Polish involvement in crimes committed against Jews during the war.

Many in Poland argue that such cases have been exaggerated in some historical accounts, which they say also downplay or ignore the help given by Poles to Jews during the war as well as the broader, centuries-long history of a Jewish presence in Poland.

In 2023, Poland’s then PiS government reached an agreement with Israel to resume Holocaust study trips to Poland for Israeli youth, which had previously been suspended. However, the deal was criticised by Israeli opposition figures and historians.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Mikołaj Bujak/IPN (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

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.