Wiesenthal Center Criticizes Polish Government Award to Honor Virulent Anti-Semitic Writer

September 20, 2023

JERUSALEM – The Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a strong condemnation of a special award given last week by the Polish Ministry of Culture named for Polish historian and former Culture Minister, Thomas Merta, who was killed in a 2010 plane crash, which claimed the lives of, among others, Polish President, Lech Kaczynsky to virulenty anti-Semitic right wing writer Rafal Ziemkiewicz, who is today one of the most vocal Polish anti-Semites. Thus in a 2021 You Tube video, Ziemkiewicz claimed that the Jews of Jedwabne who had been murdered in July 1941 by their Polish neighbors deserved their fate.

In his most recent book, Ziemkiewicz claimed that Jews had acquired "a peculiar cruelty under the influence of the Holocaust, or rather the myth of the Holocaust that they created", and described IDF soldiers as "killing machines".

The Center's Director of Eastern European Affairs, Holocaust historian, Dr Efraim Zuroff, termed the award "a vicious insult to the victims of the Holocaust and the survivors, as well as to Jews the world over.”

According to Zuroff:
"This award is yet another manifestation of the rampant Holocaust distortion promoted by the ruling Polish Law and Justice party. It was Poles who believed lies similar to the ones spread by Ziemkiewicz, who assisted the Nazis in implementing the ‘Final Solution’ of Polish Jewry.”

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center: Tel: 972-2-563-1274 or Tel: 972-50-721-4156, follow the Center on Facebook, or @simonwiesenthal and @EZuroff for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).