Russia spreads fake video to undermine Polish support for Ukraine, Kyiv says
The history of Jews killed by Poles during WWII in the north-eastern town of Jedwabne is an example of the tragedy that antisemitism and nationalist prejudice can lead to, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.
At least 340 Jews were murdered on July 10, 1941, in Jedwabne, according to Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). The IPN's investigation showed that the killings had been carried out by a group of local Poles at the instigation of the Germans, who occupied Poland at that time. Most of the pogrom's victims were locked in a barn and burnt alive.
"On the 85th anniversary of the crime in Jedwabne, we pay tribute to all its victims – the Jewish citizens of Poland from Jedwabne, murdered by a group of Poles," the foreign ministry wrote on X.
It said that the circumstances of the IPN's findings regarding the crime remain an important element of knowledge about this tragic chapter in Polish-Jewish history.
"The history of the crime in Jedwabne is an example of injustice, showing what antisemitism and all hatred, national prejudices, and xenophobia can lead to, fuelled by forces that prey on fear and pursue their own interests at the expense of Poland and the Poles," the ministry warned.
Polish far-right activists, including the notorious antisemitic leader Grzegorz Braun, tried to disrupt Friday's memorial for the victims of the pogrom in Jedwabne and promote their own version of history, in which the Jews were killed by the Nazi Germans. At a plot of land located nearby, they put up posters accusing Poland's Chief Rabbi Micheal Schudrich as well as historians and Poland's former presidents of falsifying history.
The memorial was attended by Speakers of the Sejm, lower house of the Polish parliament, and Senate, Wlodzimierz Czarzasty and Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska as well as representatives of the President, the IPN, and of the Jewish community in Poland.
Schudrich told reporters after the event that he learned with sadness about the far-right manifestation held nearby. "When I heard about this opposition to our prayer... I thought, what it means to be against a prayer," he said, adding that he hoped to be able to pray together at next year's commemoration.
Earlier during the memorial, Schudrich said that the event provided an opportunity to remember the victims, and by that "to build a better world for our children and grandchildren." (PAP)
wpb/at
