Polish Anti-Refugee Demonstrators Burn Jew in Effigy
A Polish demonstration against taking in Muslim refugees ended with the burning of an effigy of a haredi Orthodox Jew holding the flag of the European Union.
Dozens protested Wednesday evening in front of the city hall in the western Poland city of Wroclaw.
The protest comes in the wake of the Nov. 13 attacks on multiple sites in Paris that left at least 129 dead. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks and police believe that one the terrorists entered the European Union with the flood of Syrian refugees.
The crown shouted: “United Catholic Poland! National radicalism! Down with the European Union!” The demonstration was organized by the National Radical Camp and All-Polish Youth.
“Our duty, the duty of lawmakers and the government, is to say that we won’t take a single Islamist in to Poland because Poland is for Poles,” proclaimed one of the demonstration’s speakers. .
At the end of the demonstration one of the participants set fire to a previously prepared effigy of a haredi Orthodox Jew. “God, Honor and Fatherland,” the crowd then chanted.
“Recalling anti-Jewish stereotypes proves that we are still divided and that cooperation is not possible,” Piotr Kadlcik, a Polish-Jewish activist, told JTA.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
