Polish foreign minister walks out of interview after question on American-Jewish wife’s ancestry

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This article has been updated to include a response from Monika Olejnik.

Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, walked out of a TV studio on air after answering a question from the presenter about whether the ancestry of his Jewish-American wife, journalist and historian Anne Applebaum, would harm his chances as a potential candidate in next year’s presidential elections.

Sikorski later issued a statement condemning the suggestion that Poles are antisemites and calling for the station – American-owned TVN, which is Poland’s largest private broadcaster – to “restore journalistic standards”.

On Saturday, Sikorski was announced as one of two candidates in a primary election being held by the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), Poland’s main ruling group, to choose a candidate to stand for the presidency.

In an interview on TVN on Tuesday evening, presenter Monika Olejnik, a well-known journalist, asked Sikorski, in the final question of the programme, for his reaction to a newspaper report that “the ancestry of your wife is a problem” according to some members of KO.

“I would say that there is already a secular tradition that the first lady should be a person of Jewish origin,” responded Sikorski. Poland’s current first lady, Agata Kornhauser-Duda, had a Jewish grandfather. Her predecessor, Anna Komorowska, had a Jewish mother.

After answering, Sikorski was seen walking out of the studio while the credits were rolling at the end of the programme, rather than remaining seated as would normally be the case.

Shortly afterwards, Sikorski published a tweet saying that “making the origin of a candidate’s wife an issue in the presidential election is unacceptable”.

“Contrary to Ms Olejnik’s insinuations, we are not a country of antisemites,” he continued. “I demand that TVN and Warner Bros./Discovery restore journalistic standards.”

An international study published last year by the US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that over a third of people in Poland “harbour antisemitic attitudes”, which was the second highest figure among ten European countries surveyed.

TVN is owned by US media conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery. The station is generally seen as holding a liberal political position, often aligned with KO.

Sikorski received words of support from his rival in the KO primaries, Rafał Trzaskowski, who wrote: “Wife, children, family are sacred. I express support for Anne and Radek [short for Radosław].”

A number of other figures from KO also took to social media to express support for Sikorski and criticism of Olejnik. Applebaum herself has not commented on the issue at the time of writing.

A few hours later, Olejnik herself issued a statement saying that she has “for years been fighting against antisemitism, violence, hate and aggression”. She said that she had asked Sikorski the question to give him a chance to respond to what was written about his wife’s ancestry in a newspaper.

“I apologise to all my viewers if I was not precise and emphatic enough,” she added. “It was not my intention to make any insinuations.”

However, the newspaper that Olejnik had claimed to be quoting in the question, Tygodnik Powszechny, issued a statement saying it had not printed the words she attributed to it. A news website, Gazeta.pl, noted that she had probably taken it from one of their articles.

 

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A post shared by Monika Olejnik (@monikaolejnik_official)

Applebaum was also the subject of another question put to Sikorski last week during an interview on state broadcaster TVP.

There, the presenter asked the foreign minister if his wife’s strong negative views towards Donald Trump – including accusing him of “speaking like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini” in a recent article in The Atlantic – make it impossible for Sikorski to stand for the presidency following Trump’s election victory.

Sikorski responded by telling the interviewer that a wife is not “an extension of her husband”, and noted that Applebaum is an “outstanding historian and commentator”.

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: Mateusz Skwarczek / Agencja Wyborcza.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.