The Anti-Semitic Purge in Poland
In 1967 Israel won the Six-Day War. Moscow and the USSR satellite countries supported the Arab coalition. After this event, relations between the “Eastern Block” and Israel deteriorated dramatically. Poland broke off diplomatic relations with this country. A year later, as a result of internal purges in the Communist Party, an antisemitic campaign began with anti-Israel and anti-Zionist themes at its core. As a result of the antisemitic campaign led by the communist authorities (not society) between 13,000 and 15,000 Jewish Poles (mostly the elite and intelligentsia – professors, generals, doctors, etc.) were expelled from Poland. They received a “one way ticket” and even lost Polish citizenship. After “March 1968”, the Polish Jewish world almost ceased to exist. It was a demographic catastrophe. Many Jews started hiding their identity. Nowadays as a result many young people discover their veiled Jewish roots and go back to Judaism, receiving Polish citizenship as descendants of those who fled Poland in 1968.
Abusing History
The Israelis today are behaving like the Nazis did in the past. In General, criticism of Israel is often charged with antisemitic stereotypes and draws comparisons to National Socialism. Typical characteristics are the reversal of perpetrators and victims and the negation of Israel’s right to exist. The claim that Israel deliberately murders children or commits a genocide against the Palestianians is a popular tactic for delegitimizing the Jewish state and falls back to old antisemitic stereotypes like the blood libel and the topos of an imagined “collective Jew”. In General, criticism of Israel is often charged with antisemitic stereotypes and draws comparisons to National Socialism. Typical characteristics are the reversal of perpetrators and victims and the negation of Israel’s right to exist. The claim that Israel deliberately murders children or commits a genocide against the Palestianians is a popular tactic for delegitimizing the Jewish state and falls back to old antisemitic stereotypes like the blood libel and the topos of an imagined “collective Jew”.
Demonizing The Jewish State
During anti-Israel demonstrations in the context of the recent Gaza-crisis, demonstrators shouted the slogan “Kindermörder Israel” (“Child-killer Israel”).
The president of Turkey, popular amongst many Turks in Germany, said in a public broadcast that Israel are such murderous bloodsuckers that they even kill small five- and six-year old children.
Global Protests Against Israel
“The hour will come when the Muslims will fight and kill the Jews until the Jews hide behind stones and trees.” (Hamas Charter). Al-Quds Day was introduced in 1979 by the former Iranian religious leader Ruhollah Khomeini as a political day of struggle for “international Muslim solidarity” with the Palestinians. The declared goal: the “liberation” of Jerusalem (in Arabic, al-Quds) from the Jews and the annihilation of the State of Israel. Right on time for the end of the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, anti-Israeli demonstrations had been taking place in many countries around the world. In previous al-Quds marches there were numerous scandals. In 2014, several pro-Palestinian demonstrators are said to have chanted the slogans “Zionists into the gas chambers”, and “Gas Israel”. There were even reports of “Sieg Heil!” shouts. Again and again there were arrests by the police for anti-constitutional statements and symbols.
The Fight Between Good And Evil
The Turkish Islamist Necmettin Erbakan (1926 – 2011) claims that the Jews (in his words, “Zionists”) started creating a world order more than 5,000 years ago with the help of the Kabbalah to control all money and labor. The Jews organized the crusades, and because the Catholic church was against money lending, the Jews created Protestantism so as to be able to make everybody work for them by introducing capitalism. That’s how the Jews control the world, apart from Islam, and that’s the fight between good and evil, the struggle between them and Islam.
Antisemitic Graffiti In Novi Sad
In December 2020, in Novi Sad, a billboard showing an image of the Novi Sad synagogue was vandalised with graffiti “Judenfrei” and a crossed-out Star of David.
The City authorities reacted swiftly, and the graffiti was painted over the same day. Two months later, in January 2021, just a day before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration, the same billboard was targeted again with antisemitic graffiti. This time the offender(s) painted a crossed-out Star of David, the “Celtic Cross,” and the abbreviation “SS” (SS refers to the Nazi military units Schutzstaffel.) The authorities painted over these symbols promptly, too.
Burning Of A Jewish Effigy In Wroclaw
This antisemitic event took place in the market square of Wroclaw in 2016, during a protest by the far-right and nationalist organization NOP (Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski – National Rebirth of Poland).. The protest was targeted against the flow of refugees from the Middle East into the European Union. The main organizer of the protest, Piotr Rybak, claimed the whole “process of accepting Islamists to Europe” is financed by George Soros. Since the aforementioned alleged financier has Jewish roots, the puppet set on fire served as a stereotypical representation of a Jew.
Trivializing Antisemitism
“Hitler and the Nazis are just one bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history.” (Alexander Gauland, AFD)
“All we need is a 180-degree turn in the politics of memory.” (Björn Höcke, AFD)
The 2019 Halle Synagogue Attack
The German far-right extremist Stephan Balliet (born in 1992) who perpetrated the terrorist attack on the synagogue in Halle (Saale) and murdered and injured several bystanders, believed in an antisemitic version of the narrative of the “Great Replacement”. For him the Jews are the driving force behind the mass-migration of Muslims and black people to Europe and North America that are allegedly replacing the white people and perpetrating a “genocide on the white race”.
The Neonazi Party “Golden Dawn” And Konstantinos Plevris’ Antisemitic Book
“The Führer of the German Reich, the visionary of New Europe, together with Eva Braun, committed suicide at 15:30 on April 30, 1945. On this very day, thirty-eight years later, we, the Greek national-socialists will stand straight, profering the eternal greeting and keep a minute’s silence. In our hearts the faith in Führer’s words will flare up and within one or two generations justice will be rendered. In our hearts the faith in victory is festering. The victory will be ours. This victory will mark the national-socialist cosmogony as well as the crash of the poisoner of all peoples, the international Judaism. The fight goes on, the future is ours.”
Antisemitic Messages Near The Novi Sad Synagogue
In November 2020, a message reading “The Jew pulls all the strings” was found stuck on the sidewalk near the Novi Sad Synagogue. One of the oldest anti-Jewish myths and stereotypes is the one about “Jewish power” and the “global Jewish conspiracy”. In its contemporary form, this myth represents Jews as a powerful, secret, global group, often referred to as a “Jewish lobby”, that manipulates governments, banks, financial institutions, academia, the media, film and entertainment industry, and other national and international institutions, for malicious purposes of Jewish world domination and control. This anti-Jewish myth has been present as one of the most prominent antisemitic narratives in various forms from the New Testament, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to anti-globalism and various contemporary conspiracy theories.
Divided In Blood
“His blood on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:24-25). Christianity appeared in Poland during the 10th century, and began to hugely impact Polish culture, customs and society. One of the first myths to emerge at the junction of Christianity and Judaism was the use of the biblical story about the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. The claim was coined that “the Jews have the blood of Jesus on their hands” because it was the representatives of the priests and the Sanhedrin (the highest Jewish religious and judicial institution in ancient Judea) who were responsible for sentencing Jesus to death. In the Middle Ages, there was a conviction that Jews were outlawed because of killing the Messiah. Traces of such thinking can still be found today.