Far right protest during Auschwitz camp liberation commemoration
"The Jewish nation and Israel is doing everything to change the history of the Polish nation."
By REUTERSFar right activists walk past the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz, to pay tribute to Polish victims at the "death wall", during the ceremonies marking the 74th anniversary of the liberation of the camp and International Holocaust Vict(photo credit: KACPER PEMPEL / REUTERS)
OSWIECIM, Poland - Dozens of Polish far right nationalists gathered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland on Sunday to protest at the same time as officials and survivors marked the 74th anniversary of the camp's liberation in an annual ceremony.The two parties gathered in different parts of the camp, now an open-air museum, and did not encounter each other. It was the first time the far right has held a protest at Auschwitz at the annual event, which is also International Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day.At the official ceremony on Sunday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and other government officials were joined in prayer by some of the last remaining survivors of the death camp.In another location at the site, far right protesters wrapped in Polish flags, some of the stamped with the words "Polish Holocaust," laid flowers and sang the Polish national anthem."The Jewish nation and Israel is doing everything to change the history of the Polish nation," said Piotr Rybak of the Polish Independence Movement, who led Sunday's protest. "Polish patriots cannot allow this."The protest comes at a time of surging antisemitism in parts of Europe and as critics accuse the PiS of trying to build a nationalist sense of grievance among Poles by seeking to minimize Polish complicity in the Holocaust.During decades of communist rule, Poles were taught to believe that, with a few exceptions, the nation had conducted itself honorably during a war that killed a fifth of the population.Many still refuse to accept research showing thousands had participated in the Holocaust - in addition to the thousands that had risked their lived to help the Jews - and feel the West has failed to recognize Poland's own suffering during the war.More than 3 million of Poland's 3.2 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust. Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by the Germans on Polish soil, including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians.
