A country still in the grip of anti-Semitism.

last updated 8 January 2015

Poland

Gabriele Lesser

Poland is still anchored in its anti-Semitic past, says Gabriele Lesser in Berlin’s die tageszeitung. Consider the output of Radio Maryja, one of Poland’s main radio stations and virtual house organ of the governing conservative Law and Justice Party. (Between the hymns and prayers, ministers use it to announce policy.) This Catholic station, which spews out right-wing propaganda for the benefit of its 3 million listeners, surpassed itself last month with an anti-Semitic diatribe from the pundit Stanislaw Michalkiewicz. Polish “kikes,” he bellowed, have manufactured a “Holocaust industry” in order to “extort” compensation from the taxpayer for property expropriated during World War II. Poland’s telecom watchdog, which recently imposed a heavy fine on another radio station for satirizing Radio Maryja and “damaging the journalistic ethic,” didn’t utter a peep of protest. But the comments incensed Pope Benedict, and the Vatican fired off a furious letter to Poland’s bishops, demanding they stop turning a blind eye to this extremist claptrap. Benedict is due on an official visit next month. If the bishops want to avoid a spanking from the pope in person, they had better do something, and soon, about Radio’s Maryja’s hateful programming.