Polish newspaper runs front page list on ‘how to spot a Jew’
MP says it is ‘absolute scandal’ such ‘filthy texts, as if taken from Nazi newspapers’ sold in parliament
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Your support makes all the difference.A right-wing newspaper in Poland has published an article on its front page instructing readers on “how to recognise a Jew”.
The Tylko Polska, or “Only Poland”, ran a list of “names, anthropological features, expressions, appearances, character traits, methods of operation” and “disinformation activities” which it said could be used to identify Jewish people.
“How to defeat them? This cannot go on!” the front page also said, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The article was printed alongside a headline reading “Attack on Poland at a conference in Paris”, a reference to a Holocaust studies conference last month whose speakers were accused of being anti-Polish.
The newspaper caused an outcry among Polish politicians when it was distributed in the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament.
Michal Kaminski, an MP for the centre-right Poland Comes First party, said it was an “absolute scandal” such “filthy texts, as if taken from Nazi newspapers” were sold in the Polish parliament, Polsatnews reported.
Mr Kaminski asked for an explanation from parliament speaker Marek Kuchcinski, a member of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party, for how such an “antisemitic” front page was made available in parliament.
The director of the Sejm Information Centre, Andrzej Grzegrzolka, initially said his office could not take action as the paper was being sold from kiosks inside the Sejm who were responsible for the choice of newspapers.
He also suggested a court could look into the front page and decide whether the title should be suspended under Polish law, which bans hate speech motivated by race or religion.
However, Mr Grzegrzolka later announced his office would request the publication be removed from the Sejm’s press kit.
The newspaper’s front page also featured an image of Jan Gross, a Polish-Jewish academic at Princeton University who has courted controversy for suggesting Polish people were complicit in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust.
Mr Gross’ argument that Poles collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War has made him a regular target of outrage by Polish nationalists.
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