Racism in Poland
Racism in Poland has been a subject of extensive studies. Ethnic minorities historically made up a substantial proportion of Poland's population, from the founding of the Polish state through the Second Polish Republic, than they did after World War II when government statistics showed that at least 94% of the population self-reported as Poles.[1][2]
As per the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), hate crimes recorded by the Police of Poland dropped between 2018 and 2020, but rose steadily until 2022, reaching a level higher than 2018 (table below). Of the 440 prosecuted hate crimes, 268 (61%) were racist and xenophobic hate crimes, seconded by 87 (20%) anti-Semitic hate crimes, while only 6% were "anti-Muslim" hate crimes (25). [3][4]
Year | Hate crimes recorded by police | Prosecuted | Sentenced |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | 1,180 | 440 | 312 |
2021 | 997 | 466 | 339 |
2020 | 826 | 374 | 266 |
2019 | 972 | 432 | 597 |
2018 | 1,117 | 397 | 315 |
Jews
changeMiddle Ages
changeKing Casimir III the Great brought Jews to Poland during the Black Death when Jewish communities were persecuted across Europe.[5][6]
Renaissance
changeBy mid-16th century, 80% of world Jewry lived in Poland.[5][6] During the 15th century, radical Catholics in Kraków incited pogroms in 1469. In 1485, Jewish elders were forced to stop trading in Kraków. After the 1494 Kraków fire, pogroms happened again. King John I Albert forced the Jews to move to Kazimierz.[7] Starting in 1527, Jews were no longer admitted into the city walls of Warsaw (generally speaking, temporary stays were possible in the royal palace). Only the Praga suburb was open to them.[8]: 334
Interwar period
changeIn the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), the government restricted Jews from civil service and licence acquisition. From the 1930s, the restrictions extended to college admission and almost all professions. In 1921-22, 25% of college students were Jewish and the proportion fell to 8% by 1939, but the far-right Endecja (National Democracy) party continued to organize anti-Jewish boycotts. After Polish Prime Minister Józef Piłsudski's death in 1935, the Endecja doubled down by vowing to "remove Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland". The government relented and organized the Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego (OZON, English: Camp of National Unity) to take over the Polish parliament in 1938. Anti-Jewish laws were subsequently drafted.[9] The renowned historian Timothy Snyder claimed that the pre-1939 Polish leadership
[...] wanted to be rid of most Polish Jews [...but] in simple logistical terms the idea [...] seemed to make no sense. How could Poland arrange a deportation of millions of Jews while the country was mobilized for war? Should the tens of thousands of Jewish officers and soldiers be pulled from the ranks of the Polish army?[10]
Mid-20th century
changeNotable wartime pogroms in Poland included the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom, where a small number of Poles killed 340+ Jews under the auspices of the Nazi German occupiers.[11] Jews in Poland made up 10% of Poland's population in 1939, who were all but eradicated in the Holocaust.[12] Brief post-war anti-Jewish violence, including the Kraków pogrom on 11 August 1945 and Kielce pogrom on 4 July 1946, also happened, which is claimed to have caused by lawlessness[13] and the Żydokomuna (Jewish communism) stereotype held by some Poles.[14][15][16]
21st century
changeIn 2022, the American civil rights group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted a global survey on antisemitism. It found that 35% of Poland's people "harbour[ed] antisemitic attitudes", the second highest among the 10 European countries surveyed. Notably, the percentage was significantly lower than the previous ADL survey.[17] Whereas, the Czulent Jewish Association, a Polish Jewish group,[18] reported in 2023 that 488 antisemitic incidents had been recorded in 2022, 86% of which involved online harassment and insults. It noted that "Jew" was often used to smear a perceived enemy as "disloyal, an outsider and unpatriotic."[19] Comments peddling antisemitic tropes and blaming all Jews for the Gaza War are also reportedly common in Reddit's subreddit r/Poland, subject to no apparent administrative interventions despite blatant violations.[20]
In June 2023, Polish-Canadian historian Jan Grabowski held a seminar on Poland's history of antisemitism in Warsaw. Far-right MP Grzegorz Braun and his backers forced its cancellation by smashing Grabowski's microphone.[21] During the 2023 Hanukkah, the same MP put out a menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament.[22] He was expelled by the parliament and charged with hate crimes.[22] His behavior caused a global uproar,[23] while being praised by a pro-Palestinian multitude in Reddit's subreddit r/Poland.[20] Nevertheless, Grzegorz Braun was elected to the European Parliament in June 2024.[24] On 1 May 2024, the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw was hit with three firebombs by a 16-year old.
There is no place for antisemitism in Poland! There is no place for hatred in Poland!
Poland's President Andrzej Duda condemned, which happened amid a global spike in antisemitic terrorism from the Gaza War.[25]
Roma
changeIn June 1991, a riot broke out in the Polish town Mława after a Romani teenager drove into three Poles in a crosswalk, killing one Polish man and permanently injuring another, before fleeing the scene.[26] A mob attacked wealthy Romani settlements in the town. Both the Mława police chief and University of Warsaw sociology researchers claimed the riot to have been caused by class envy, while the town's mayor and townsfolk believed it to have been racially motivated.[27] It is claimed that the riot's news coverage comprised anti-Roma stereotypes.[28]
Africans
changeThe most common word in Polish for a Black person is Murzyn, often deemed neutral in the past but a slur nowadays.[29][30] In Communist Poland, translations of the Uncle Tom's Cabin were widely circulated due to the communist regime's perception of the book's anti-slavery and anti-capitalist nature, despite it having reinforced anti-Black stereotypes.[30]
References
change- ↑ Główny Urząd Statystyczny, Wyniki Narodowego Spisu Powszechnego Ludności i Mieszkań 2011 Archived 21 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Warszawa 2012, pp. 105-106
- ↑ Polish population census 2002 nationalities tables 1 or 2
- ↑ "OSCE ODIHR HATE CRIME REPORT: Poland". ODIHR. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
The police records represent the number of proceedings initiated by police for hate crimes cases in 2022, including proceedings that were later discontinued owing to a lack of evidence.
- ↑ "Poland Hate Crime Report 2022". ODIHR. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Poland – Virtual Jewish History Tour" at Jewish Virtual Library via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Polish Jews History", at PolishJews.org via Internet Archive.
- ↑ The Torah Ark in Renaissance Poland: A Jewish Revival of Classical Antiquity, Ilia M. Rodov, Brill, pages 2-6
- ↑ Ducreux, Marie-Élizabeth (2011). "Les Juifs dans les sociétés d'Europe centrale et orientale". In Germa, Antoine; Lellouch, Benjamin; Patlagean, Evelyne (eds.). Les Juifs dans l'histoire: de la naissance du judaïsme au monde contemporain (in French). Ed. Champ Vallon. pp. 331–373.
- ↑ Hagen, William W. (1996). "Before the 'final solution': Toward a comparative analysis of political anti-Semitism in interwar Germany and Poland". The Journal of Modern History. 68 (2): 351–381. doi:10.1086/600769. S2CID 153790671.
- ↑ Snyder, Timothy (2015). "The Promise of Palestine". Black earth: the Holocaust as history and warning (First ed.). New York: Tim Duggan Books. ISBN 978-1-101-90345-2.
- ↑ Wróbel, Piotr (2006). Lessons and Legacies: The Holocaust in international perspective. Northwestern University Press. pp. 391–396. doi:10.2307/j.ctv47w635. ISBN 0-8101-2370-3. JSTOR j.ctv47w635. Retrieved October 23, 2024.
- ↑ Lukas, Richard (1989). Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 5, 13, 111, 201. ISBN 0813116929.
The estimates of Jewish survivors in Poland,.
; also in Lukas (2012) [1986]. The Forgotten Holocaust: Poles Under Nazi Occupation 1939-1944. New York: University of Kentucky Press/Hippocrene Books. ISBN 978-0-7818-0901-6. - ↑ Grabski, August. "Book review of Stefan Grajek: Po wojnie i co dalej? Żydzi w Polsce, w latach 1945−1949 translated from Hebrew by Aleksander Klugman, 2003" (PDF). Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL) (in Polish). Kwartalnik Historii Żydów (Jewish History Quarterly). p. 240 – via direct download, 1.03 MB.
- ↑
- Polonksy, Antony; Michlic, Joanna B., eds. (2003). "Explanatory notes". The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland. Princeton University Press. p. 469. ISBN 978-0-691-11306-7.
- Belavusau, Uladzislau (2013). Freedom of Speech: Importing European and US Constitutional Models in Transitional Democracies. Routledge. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-135-07198-1.
- Smith, S. A., ed. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 206. ISBN 9780191667510.
Here anti-communism merged with antisemitism as concepts such as Polish żydokomuna (Jewish Communism) suggest.
- Stone, Dan (2014). Goodbye to All That?: The Story of Europe Since 1945. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-19-969771-7.
- Michnik, Adam; Marczyk, Agnieszka (2018). "Introduction: Poland and Antisemitism". In Michnik, Adam; Marczyk, Agnieszka (eds.). Against Anti-Semitism: An Anthology of Twentieth-century Polish Writings. New York: Oxford University Press. p. xvii (xi–2). ISBN 978-0-1-90624514.
- ↑
- Krajewski, Stanisław (2000). "Jews, Communism, and the Jewish Communists" (PDF). In Kovács, András (ed.). Jewish Studies at the CEU: Yearbook 1996–1999. Central European University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 October 2018.
- William W. Hagen (2023). "The Expulsion of Jews From Communist Poland: Memory Wars and Homeland Anxieties". Slavic Review. 82 (2). Cambridge University Press: 519–520. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (2023). Cursed: A Social Portrait of the Kielce Pogrom. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501771484. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑ *"Poland's President Apologizes for 1968 Purge of Jews". Haaretz. March 18, 2018. Retrieved October 17, 2024.
- "Poland: 50 years since 1968 anti-Semitic purge". DW News. March 18, 2018. Retrieved October 17, 2024.
In 1968, the Polish Communist party declared thousands of Jews enemies of the state and forced them to leave Poland. Fifty years later, historians and witnesses warn of a revival of Polish anti-Semitism.
- "'It Changed Our Society Entirely': TV Series Shows How Poland Expelled 16,000 Jews in 1968". Haaretz. September 15, 2024. Retrieved October 17, 2024.
The Polish TV series 'End of Innocence,' about the communist government's brutal clampdown on 'Zionists' in March 1968, explores a rarely discussed tragedy for thousands of Jews – as told by a writer-director who lived through it
- "Amid Europe's Soaring Antisemitism, Two Polish Communities Work to Recover Pre-Holocaust Jewish History". CBN. September 10, 2024. Retrieved October 17, 2024.
- "Poland: 50 years since 1968 anti-Semitic purge". DW News. March 18, 2018. Retrieved October 17, 2024.
- ↑
- "2023 UPDATE". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
- "Over a third of Poles "harbour antisemitic attitudes", finds international study". Notes from Poland. June 2, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
Separately, the ADL also asked directly if people have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of Jews. In Poland, 64% said they had a favourable view, while 19% admitted to the opposite. That latter figure was the highest among all countries surveyed [...] When presented with the antisemitic stereotypes, 62% of people in Poland said it was "probably true" that Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country, 57% that they talk too much about [...] the Holocaust, and 53% that they have too much power in the business world and financial markets.
- ↑ "Addressing Antisemitism through Education in the Visegrad Group Countries. A Mapping Report". Żydowskie Stowarzyszenie Czulent. 5 October 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
- ↑
- "Polish-Jewish group releases antisemitism report that shows steep increase in incidents compared to EU tally". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. April 24, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
A Jewish association counted 488 antisemitic incidents in Poland in 2022, a number that the report's author said just scratches the surface.
- "Polish-Jewish group releases antisemitism report showing steep increase in incidents compared to EU tally". Jewish News. April 25, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
86% of incidents involved online harassment and insults, while the word "Jew" is frequently used online to label an "enemy" as "disloyal, an outsider and unpatriotic."
- "Jewish group's report finds rise in antisemitic incidents in Poland". The Times of Israel. April 25, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
First survey of its kind counts 488 anti-Jewish acts in Poland in 2022, more than 4 times the total cited by the European Union the previous year [...] "There is not a Polish politician who hasn't been called a Jew," [the report's lead author Anna] Zielińska told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Czulent's 2022 report detailed one violent act that resulted in injury, four additional violent attacks, 20 threats, 34 instances of damage to Jewish property and memorial sites, 68 cases of antisemitic mass mailings and 372 instances of "abusive" behavior.
- "Polish-Jewish group releases antisemitism report that shows steep increase in incidents compared to EU tally". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. April 24, 2023. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Examples:
- "A Polish depute Grzegorz Braun extinguishes the Jewish menorah on Hanukkah inside the Polish Parliament 12.12.2023". Reddit. December 12, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Jewish grudge against Poles". Reddit. 10 June 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Why do Israeli school groups travel with armed guards in Poland?". Reddit. 10 September 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑
- "Far-right MP forces abandonment of Holocaust scholar's lecture at German institute in Warsaw". Notes from Poland. May 31, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Far-right Polish MP violently interrupts Holocaust scholar's lecture at German institute in Warsaw". European Jewish Congress. June 1, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- * "Far-right Polish MP violently interrupts Holocaust scholar's lecture at German institute in Warsaw". Jewish News. June 2, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Event was intended to address efforts by Polish leaders to suppress uncomfortable truths about the history of antisemitism in the country before and during the Holocaust.
- "Polish radical right-wing MP disrupts lecture on Holocaust". DW News. June 1, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
A Polish radical right-wing MP's violent disturbance at a lecture on the Holocaust at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw prevented a renowned historian and researcher from speaking.
- "Lecture on Holocaust in Poland canceled after far-right lawmaker storms podium". The Times of Israel. June 2, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 Wright, George (18 January 2024). "Grzegorz Braun: Polish MP who doused Hanukkah candles loses immunity". BBC. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
- ↑
- "Far-right Polish MP Just Took a Fire Extinguisher to a Menorah in Parliament". VICE. December 12, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Watch: Far-Right MP uses fire extinguisher to snuff out Hanukkah candles". The Telegraph. December 12, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Grzegorz Braun expelled from Polish parliament after furious reaction from politicians
- Kika, Thomas (December 13, 2023). "Polish MP Rails Against 'Satanic' Jews After Extinguishing Menorah". Newsweek. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Far-Right Polish MP Extinguishes Hanukah Candles". Genocide Watch. December 13, 2023. Retrieved October 16, 2023.
Grzegorz Braun, far-right Polish lawmaker from the Confederation party, walks after using a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukah candles at the parliament in Warsaw.
- "Far-right Polish MP charged after extinguishing parliament's Hanukkah candles". The Times of Israel. April 9, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Grzegorz Braun indicted for insulting people on religious grounds; disrupting Jewish community event, lawmaker described holiday as 'satanic,' said he was restoring 'normality'
- ↑
- "Polish MP who doused menorah wins higher office". Israel Hayom. June 10, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Grzegorz Braun gained notoriety last December for extinguishing a Hanukkah menorah in the Polish parliament with a fire extinguisher, labeling Judaism as a "cult of the Talmud and Satan."
- "Polish MP who doused menorah in antisemitic attack elected to European Parliament". Jewish News Syndicate. June 10, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 in southern Israel, the Confederation Party has intensified its anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, accusing the Jewish state of genocide and calling for the expulsion of the Israeli envoy.
- "Polish 'bad boys' to join new EU house". Euractiv. June 11, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
Another 'bad boy' to win a seat in the European Parliament for the far-right Confederation party is Grzegorz Braun, an openly anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and anti-EU politician who gained international attention last December when he used a fire extinguisher to blow out Hanukkah candles in the Polish parliament.
- "Polish MP who doused menorah wins higher office". Israel Hayom. June 10, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑
- "Warsaw synagogue attacked with three Molotov cocktails". Le Monde. May 1, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "16-year-old arrested for attempted arson at Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw". TVP World. May 2, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- "Poland synagogue attacked by Molotov cocktails amid surge in antisemitism". Jurist News. May 2, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
- ↑ Rebecca Jean Emigh; Szelényi, Iván (2001). Poverty, Ethnicity, and Gender in Eastern Europe During the Market Transition. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 101–102. ISBN 978-0-275-96881-6. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
- ↑ "Poles Vent Their Economic Rage on Gypsies". The New York Times. July 25, 1991. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
- ↑ Anna Giza-Poleszczuk, Jan Poleszczuk, Raport "Cyganie i Polacy w Mławie - konflikt etniczny czy społeczny?" (Report "Romani and Poles in Mława - Ethnic or Social Conflict?") commissioned by the Centre for Public Opinion Research, Warsaw, December 1992, pp. 16- 23, Sections III and IV "Cyganie w PRL-u stosunki z polską większością w Mławie" and "Lata osiemdziesiąte i dziewięćdziesiąte".
- ↑ ""Murzyn" i "Murzynka"". www.rjp.pan.pl. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 "#DontCallMeMurzyn: Black Women in Poland Are Powering the Campaign Against a Racial Slur". Time. August 7, 2020.