Impactos sobre los suelos

The goal of this chapter will be to empirically evaluate the effectiveness of the state policies toward anti-Semitism in contemporary Poland. The data used to evaluate the effectiveness of these policies include: support for far right parties/groups; levels of anti-Semitic attitudes and hate crimes; and the vibrancy of the domestic Jewish

community. Each of these indicators helps to evaluate the success of the state policies explained in previous chapters by demonstrating trends over time. In analyzing such data, one is able to develop a better understanding of the areas where these policies have been most and least effective. Particularly important to note is whether there have been changes in the data after the policy was adopted. As explained in previous chapters, the first policies implemented were the legal measures introduced with the adoption of the country’s constitution and penal code of 1997. The public diplomacy initiatives in Poland were implemented in two parts. First, Poland focused on correcting mischaracterizations of the country’s history with the adoption of the ‘Framework Program’ in 2002. Later, these efforts were expanded and began to include a more direct emphasis on domestic engagement beginning in 2005. This timeline of policy implementation will be essential with regard to the analysis in this chapter.

a. The Influence of Far Right Groups

As mentioned in the previous chapter, German policies toward anti-Semitism have shown effectiveness with regard to decreasing the membership and influence of far right groups in the country over time. In Poland, the policies developed to counter anti- Semitism have been less focused on such groups. Although Poland’s Human Rights

Protection Team did monitor hate crimes in the country, the Polish government does not track membership statistics for far right nor anti-Semitic groups. This makes it difficult to directly compare the size and influence of such groups in these two countries over time. Nonetheless, one area where a more direct comparison can be made is in the realm of electoral politics. While Poland does not have reliable statistics for total far right and anti-Semitic group membership, election results in the country provide some indications of the influence and support for groups with such ideology.

Poland has a few parties that emphasize an anti-Semitic ideology, including the National Rebirth of Poland (NOP – registered in 1992), National Radical Camp (ONR – registered in 1993), and the Polish National Party (PNP – registered in 2004). These parties, while known for their media campaigns, have not consistently run candidates for parliamentary nor regional elections. In fact, none of these parties have received above 0.3% of the vote in any parliamentary election since their founding – far short of the 5% threshold needed to attain representation in the Sejm or Senat. The most electorally successful year for anti-Semitic parties in Poland was 2005, in which the PNP received 34,127 total votes (0.29%) and the National Rebirth of Poland received 7,376 total votes (0.06%). None of these parties have appeared on national parliamentary ballots since that time (National Electoral Commission of Poland, 2016).

These data suggest that parties with an overt anti-Semitic ideology tend to be less successful in Polish electoral politics than similar parties in Germany. Nonetheless, there are segments in other nationalist parties that have expressed anti-Semitic views, although these views are not necessarily embraced by the party as whole. This is particularly the case with more nationalistic parties, which often ascribe to a Catholic nationalist

ideology. For example, Polish Defense Minister and Deputy Leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, Antoni Macierewicz, has expressed his belief that the Jewish

conspiracy laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion could be real. Macierewicz told a listener during a 2002 Radio Maryja interview that “experience shows that there are such groups in Jewish circles” when asked about the conspiracy (Syal, 2015). Another member of Law and Justice, Senator Dorota Arciszewska-Mielewczyk, controversially stated that “Polish Jews are represented by the Knesset and not the Polish parliament” in January 2014 in response to a report on anti-Semitism that was delivered to the Polish parliament (Coordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism, 2014). These statements demonstrate that while overtly anti-Semitic parties in Poland may not achieve widespread electoral success, there are indeed elements within, particularly nationalist parties, that have expressed anti-Semitic beliefs.

Given the lack of reliable data on far right and anti-Semitic groups in Poland, it is difficult to fully evaluate the extent that policies toward anti-Semitism have had on these groups over time. Those overtly anti-Semitic groups that have been organized and registered as political parties tend to be rather minor and have not achieved significant success in modern elections. However, this does not necessarily mean that general anti- Semitic attitudes are at a lower level in Poland, only that anti-Semitic ideology has not been particularly influential as an organized, distinct movement in Polish politics. Those leaders who have expressed anti-Semitic beliefs have tended to be within nationalist elements of other major parties that do not necessarily have anti-Semitism as a core tenet of their platform, thus making them more difficult to identify as a distinct, organized group. This lack of clearly defined, popular anti-Semitic and far right groups in Poland

makes it more difficult to target policies toward such groups, as is often done in the German case. In order to achieve a better understanding of the results in Poland, it may be more beneficial to examine more general survey data on anti-Semitic attitudes, which tend to be more frequently collected and reliable.

b. Anti-Semitic Attitudes

The data most consistently collected in Poland with regard to anti-Semitism since the end of communist rule has been attitude surveys. Since 1993, the Public Opinion Research Center based in Warsaw has collected annual survey data on the sympathy and antipathy among Poles toward Jews. These data are displayed in Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1

Source: Public Opinion Research Center, available at http://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2015/K_014_15.PDF

As the data show, sympathy toward Jews was lowest among Poles in the first year for which data was collected (1993) at only 15%, while antipathy was also at its highest level in the same year at over 50%. With a few exceptions, the data remained relatively

consistent until about 2005 when sympathy began to increase and antipathy began to decrease. This change is especially notable, because this is the time period in which many of Poland’s policies to counter anti-Semitism had become fully implemented. As noted in previous chapters, Poland’s legal response to anti-Semitism began in 1997 with the adoption of the country’s constitution and penal codes, both of which include punishments for hate crimes against Jews and other groups based on nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. However, there was little to no immediate impact on Polish attitudes toward Jews in the years following the adoption and implementation of these laws. In fact, attitudes toward Jews tended to become more negative in the years

following 1997 (sympathy dropped by about 10% in 1998). One possible explanation for this is that these legal measures were more intended to prevent expressions of violence against Jews than attitudes specifically. These legal measures were largely intended to provide a deterrent to those who may commit acts of violence or promote hateful speech, and less to change the attitudes of those who may not act violently, but yet have antipathy toward Jews.

Another aspect of Poland’s legal response was the establishment of the Institute for National Remembrance (IPN), which was founded in 1998 and began operation in 2000 (Institute for National Remembrance, 2017). It is important to remember that the IPN is not merely limited to prosecuting crimes relating to Nazism and communism, but also determining the facts with regard to Nazi and communist crimes, such as the

Holocaust. These latter tasks are carried out through the Bureau of Provision and

Archivization of Documents, so while the IPN is indeed a part of Poland’s legal response to anti-Semitism, it also engages in debates and corrects misinformation about a number of groups, including Jews, and the crimes committed against them. In this way, one may consider the IPN as an organization that straddles the lines between the legal and public diplomacy responses, as the organization is engaged in both the prosecution of hate crimes and influencing public opinion and knowledge. As the data show, the IPN did not have an immediate effect on Polish attitudes toward Jews in the five years following its establishment in 2000. However, the sorts of historical research and educational goals of the organization are likely to take time to develop, so one may expect these measures not to have immediate impacts on public opinion, it is possible, however, that such measures have made an impact in the long term.

The most noticeable declines in antipathy toward Jews and increases in sympathy toward Jews began after 2005. While it is true that Poland’s public diplomacy campaign had its roots in 2002 with the establishment of the Framework Program, these early initiatives were primarily concerned with correcting mischaracterizations abroad in order to gain support for Polish accession to the EU. It was not until 2005, after Poland had achieved EU accession, that the public diplomacy initiatives became more internally focused. This internal focus included the promotion of Jewish cultural events, educational initiatives, dialogical forums, and greater outreach to Jewish communities. It is indeed noteworthy that the most pronounced shift with regard to positive attitudes toward Jews began shortly after the implementation of such programs. In 2005, approximately 50% of Poles had antipathy toward Jews, but by 2010 this number was reduced by nearly half to