The World Jewish Congress on Sunday announced it was deeply disturbed and disappointed by the Polish government’s failure to intervene to remove a flagrantly anti-Semitic banner at the entrance to a guest house near the western city of Wroclaw, and to prosecute those responsible for posting it.
The sign at the Dom Polski (a Polish home) guest house in Cesarzowice declared: “Entry forbidden to Jews, Commies, and all thieves and traitors of Poland,” against a red and white backdrop, Poland’s national colors.
WJC CEO Robert Singer said that the sign “conjures up memories of ghetto benches and other chilling manifestations of anti-Semitism in Poland in the late 1930s. Given Poland’s history, we would have expected the authorities to act forcefully and swiftly to put a stop to such activity, which is illegal and utterly contravenes the democratic norms Warsaw is committed to upholding.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is also “urging Polish authorities to investigate the illegal and anti-Semitic banner at the hostel and take appropriate action against those responsible.”
According to press reports, the guest house belongs to Piotr Rybak, who is known for a number of anti-Semitic actions including the burning of a Jew in effigy on the main market square in Wroclaw (for which he was sentenced to a jail term) and for publicly insulting first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda for her Jewish origins.
