A large group of several hundreds of Polish nationalists has filled this Sunday Foley square in downtown Manhattan to protest against US legislation that aims to compensate victims of the Holocaust whose property was confiscated during the Second world war.
This is some of the crowd that gathered on a cold rainy day to say Poles hadn’t killed any Jews during the Holocaust and no, they won’t be giving back any stolen property pic.twitter.com/l3cIdlCvMJ
— Molly Crabapple (@mollycrabapple) March 31, 2019
The marchers were carrying Polish flags and placards criticizing the SS47 law, which came into force a year ago, in may of 2018. The law calls for the return of property or to «provide a comparable substitute property or the payment of just compensation» for Holocaust victims and their families.
But witnesses and those present in the square on Sunday, anti-fascist activists have reported that the protesters not only condemned S447, but also carried anti-Semitic placards and chanted slogans denying the Holocaust.
The rally was held three blocks from the Brooklyn bridge and city hall. Some of the placards read: «Stop the anti-Polish hate», «Stop slandering Poland in the media» and «Treat antipolonizma as anti-Semitism.»
Other participants held placards proclaiming that the Holocaust was the Nazi German project, and that the notorious death camp built in Poland, such as Auschwitz, was a German, not Polish. They also commended the efforts of the anti-fascist Polish army, which was the driving force behind the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, and the subsequent Warsaw uprising, which was also unable to liberate the city.
But, according to a video of the event and the stories of activists in contratista, some of the participants also reinforcing anti-Semitic stereotypes and repeated myths about the Holocaust denial. You can see one man holding a sign with the words «the Holocaust industry».
The phrase comes from the title of the book in 2000, written by a Jewish academic and author Norman Finkelstein. He argues that the American Jewish community uses the memory of the Holocaust as a way to manipulate the media and politicians for their own financial or political gain or for the benefit of the state of Israel. Critics attacked the book for using anti-Semitic stereotypes and tropes, while Finkelstein defends his work.
At some point in the video uploaded by a freelance journalist, sandy Bach , a protester in a mask several times asked that references to the phrase «the Holocaust industry», but none of the nationalists not answering his question.
Noteably, not a single person opposed to S477 has denounced the buckets of Jew hatred coming from their supporters, nor the antisemitic signs and pamphlet at the march
Instead I was accused of fabricating the pamphlet, distorting the signs, sent endless stories about commie Jews pic.twitter.com/ODqIuOh68F
— Molly Crabapple (@mollycrabapple) April 2, 2019
Author and journalist Molly Krempl live tweeted his conversation with the protesters along with photos of the crowd and their signs. She said that one protester was «waving a dollar bill to taunt Jewish opponents,» and another holding a poster «accusing Jews of supporting the Nazi and Soviet invasions of Poland».
Crabapple reported that a nationalist «denied that 90% of Polish Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, said that Jews made up 90% of the secret police after the war» and the other «told me that the Jews of Warsaw were mostly killed other Jews.»
In Poland recently, a heated debate on the history of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, culminating with a new law criminalising any assumptions about Polish complicity in the Holocaust. The use of the phrase «Polish death camps» to describe Nazi concentration camps, like Auschwitz, is now punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term up to three years.
Noteably, not a single person opposed to S477 has denounced the buckets of Jew hatred coming from their supporters, nor the antisemitic signs and pamphlet at the march
Instead I was accused of fabricating the pamphlet, distorting the signs, sent endless stories about commie Jews pic.twitter.com/ODqIuOh68F
— Molly Crabapple (@mollycrabapple) April 2, 2019
Six million Jews were victims of genocide during the Second world war, which is believed to have claimed a total of more than 17 million lives of people of different nationalities. The loss of the poles from the Nazi ethnic cleansing of all peoples was very high. In Poland, as in all other countries occupied by the Nazis, historians have found evidence of anti-Semitic collaboration between some poles and occupying Nazis. At the same time Polish resistance groups are among the most famous anti-Nazi partisan movements during the war.
