Polish official accuses Jews of ‘passivity’ during Holocaust

An adviser to Poland’s president said he thinks Israel’s negative reaction to a law criminalising some statements about Poland’s actions during the second world war stemmed from a “feeling of shame at the passivity of the Jews during the Holocaust”.

Andrzej Zybertowicz, a Nicolaus Copernicus University sociology professor who also serves as a presidential adviser, said in an interview on Friday that Israel’s opposition to the new Polish law is “anti-Polish” and shows the Middle East country “clearly fighting to keep the monopoly on the Holocaust”.

“Many Jews engaged in denunciation, collaboration during the war. I think Israel has still not worked it through,” Zybertowicz said in the interview published in the Polska The Times newspaper.

Zybertowicz could not immediately be reached for comment. Polish public officials typically have the chance to review their statements before media outlets publish them. Zybertowicz tweeted a link to the article on Friday.

His remarks follow open expressions of anti-Semitism that surfaced online and in some government-controlled media when Israeli officials objected to the bill form of the law, which outlaws public statements that falsely and intentionally attribute Nazi crimes to German-occupied Poland. Amid the crisis there has been a wave of accusation against Jews in Poland, even from state officials.