Poland Investigates Communist Era Anti-Semitism

Polish prosecutors have begun investigating former communist officials for promoting anti-Semitism in the 1960s.

 Polish prosecutors have begun investigating former communist officials for promoting anti-Semitism in the 1960s when thousands of Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust were driven from Poland, investigators said. The Institute of National Remembrance said on Thursday it had found evidence of propaganda in the archives as well as copies of speeches and press articles that made clear the anti-Semitic agenda of the government of the time.

"We will examine each case on an individual basis, look to verify whether the person has committed a communist crime, which means someone who actively participated in directing the action against Jews and inspiring it," said one of the institute's prosecutors.

Arkadiusz Galaj told Reuters his unit would try to find some of the Jews who left Poland around 1968-1969 to identify potential witnesses.

Poland has long been trying to shake off an anti-Semitic reputation it sees as unfair.

Most of Poland's three million Jews -- then the world's largest Jewish community -- were killed in the World War Two Holocaust. Thousands of survivors emigrated after the anti-Semitic campaign in the late 1960s.

According to papers brought to the attention of the institute, some Poles in top academic positions and businesses in the city of Lodz were fired in the 1960s after being accused of having Jewish origins or holding pro-Israel views.

Poland, like many other communist states, broke off relations with Israel after it defeated Soviet aligned Arab states in the 1967 Middle East war and occupied swathes of land.

The institute said former communist party general secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka had called Jews an "imperialistically Zionist fifth column" -- a statement later repeated and developed by Gomulka and other members of his party. Gomulka died in 1982.

Galaj said some 3,900 Jews applied to emigrate from Poland in 1968 and almost 7,300 in the first eight months of 1969. That compared to an estimate of between 500 and 900 Jews leaving Poland between 1961 and 1967.

The institute will start the inquiry in the Western town of Lodz, but it hopes to extend it to the rest of Poland. Galaj said the institute might appeal to Israel for help with the investigation as many of Jews who left emigrated there.

The institute's work to uncover Poles who collaborated with the communists has been encouraged by Poland's conservative ruling twins, President Lech and Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.