Polish justice minister pledges investigation into far-right leader’s Auschwitz speech

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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 justice minister, Waldemar Żurek has pledged to take action after far-right leader Grzegorz Braun’s latest anti-Jewish outburst, this time delivered outside Auschwitz, the former German-Nazi death camp.

Braun claimed that the Polish government is “implementing directives presented…by various Jewish organisations”. His remarks were condemned by Żurek, who said that the authorities “will not allow anyone to express such views with impunity”.

On Saturday, Braun held a press conference in the town of Oświęcim, which was where Nazi Germany established the Auschwitz camp during the occupation of Poland in World War Two. Around 1.1 million people were killed there, the vast majority of them Jews.

Braun used the event to condemn plans outlined last month by the justice ministry for the government to adopt a new National Strategy for Counteracting Anti-Semitism and Supporting Jewish Life. The document is set to receive cabinet approval by the end of this year.

Braun, a member of the European Parliament who finished fourth in this year’s presidential elections, condemned the plan, saying that the fact it “singles out one particular group…[for] special privileges…is tantamount to discrimination against all Polish citizens of non-Jewish descent”.

Worse than that, he argued, promoting Jewish life in Poland was like “inviting Hannibal Lecter to move in next door”. He said that Israeli brutality in Gaza shows how Jews believe that “non-Jews are not people” and claimed that, for them, “there is no difference between Palestinian and Polish children”.

Braun, who has a long history of conspiratorial antisemitism, declared that “the Warsaw government is implementing directives presented…by various Jewish organisations”.

He said that one element of that has been the way in which control of the site of Auschwitz has been taken away from Poles, despite the fact that they were victims of the camp. Braun said that his own relatives died in Nazi-German camps, including Auschwitz.

Yet “I, with my historical memory, and my fellow Poles are now second-class citizens here”, declared Braun. “Polish themes in the history of World War II are being devalued…[by] those representing state institutions and state services.”

“This is Poland, not Polin,” he declared, referring to the name of Poland in Hebrew and Yiddish. That phase is often used by Braun and his supporters to suggest that Jews are seeking to control Poland. “This is Poland, and on Polish territory there can be no other authority but Poland.”

He then addressed police officers who had been posted to his event, saying that they risked being turned into “some kind of ghetto police, harassing your own compatriots at the whistling of Jews”. During the German occupation, the Nazis set up Jewish police forces to exert control in the ghettos.

Braun’s speech was quickly condemned by Żurek, who told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that “there is no place for antisemitism in Poland, and such statements dramatically harm the Polish state on the international stage, but also in our own country”.

Żurek – who, as well as serving as justice minister, is also prosecutor general – said that Braun’s “scandalous and unacceptable” comments would be investigated.

“We will not allow anyone to express such views with impunity. We will pursue them resolutely. It is truly shameful for Poles that someone like this, in the 21st century, after what happened in Poland during World War Two, is turning this place [Auschwitz] into some hideous political game.”

Żurek noted that he has recently personally signed a request for Braun’s immunity as a member of the European Parliament to be lifted following comments in which he said that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were “fake”. The denial of Nazi crimes is illegal in Poland.

Braun has already been stripped of immunity twice this year by the European Parliament to face a variety of charges, including for inciting religious hatred against Jews and attacking a Jewish religious celebration in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher.

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: Jakub Wlodek / 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.