DISINFO: Poland is a country which does not want to condemn anti-Semitism
SUMMARY
Polish President Andrzej Duda’s decision to withdraw from the World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem confirms that Poland is a country which does not want to condemn anti-Semitism.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Poland’s anti-Semitism.
Duda's announced that he would not participate in the 5th Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem, scheduled for the 23rd of January in Yad Vashem Institute in Israel because the organisers did not invite him to speak at the event, while the Russian president would.
Błażej Spychalski, a spokesman for Duda, told Polish news outlets that “a situation in which the president of Poland will sit and listen to the false words of President Putin without being able to reply is unacceptable”.
The Polish president will speak on the 27th of January at the Auschwitz Museum, at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the liberation of the camp.
Poland’s largest Jewish community organization expressed its support for Polish President Andrzej Duda’s decision to withdraw from a major Holocaust memorial event in Jerusalem. Artur Hofman, chairman of the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland, the largest Jewish organization in the country, said in an interview that “the Jewish community in Poland and all Jewish organizations” support Duda’s decision. Hofman also emphasized that Israelis know that Poles were not complicit in the Holocaust. He called the Russian attempt to blame Poles for cooperation with Hitler “a provocation.”
Read similar disinformation cases claiming that Warsaw supported Hitler’s plan to expel Polish Jews to Africa and that Poles killed more than 400,000 Jews during WWII.