In the wake of anti-Semitic slogans and sentiments that were prominently displayed in a demonstration last Sunday in NewYork by Polish nationalists against a bill that helps Holocaust survivors regain their stolen property, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, SWC Associate and Mark Weitzman, SWC Director of GovernmentAffairs, pressed the government of Poland to repudiate the hateful expressions.
“We call on the Polish government to vigorously condemn anti-Semitism chanted – in the name of Poland – on the streets of the citythat is home to the world’s largest Jewish community. The government of Poland has been very quick to take action against expressions of what they describe as ‘the vilification of the Polishnation’ as described in the controversial, so-called IPN law which threatens open research on the Holocaust,” said Cooper and Weitzman, adding, “Left unchallenged, the disgusting expressionsof anti-Semitism in the name of Poland is what truly shames the Polish nation. Now is the time for the government of Poland to set the record straight and denounce these anti-Semites.”
This outrageous incident reflects worries among world Jewry and others over the recent surge of anti-Semitic rhetoric andpropaganda in Poland and among some Poles abroad. Weitzman, who has met with Polish officials in Warsaw, the US and Europe, testified in Congress and exposed an attempt by Polishanti-Semites to spread their propaganda in the US last spring, has been in the forefront of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s efforts to challenge these troublingnew expressions of anti-Jewish animus.
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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament(Parlatino).
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