Polish authorities are considering criminal charges against a lawmaker who said last week that the Nazi gas chambers were “fake” but antisemitic blood libels were true, according to the Associated Press.
Speaking to Poland’s Wnet radio on Thursday, lawmaker Grzegorz Braun, a high-profile antisemite who in winter used a fire extinguisher to put out Chanukah candles at the Polish parliament, said that “ritual murder is a fact, and such a thing as Auschwitz with its gas chambers is unfortunately a fake,” according to the Polish Press Agency. The reporter then ended the interview.
The incident followed a scandal over a ceremony earlier on Thursday that centered on the denial of the slaughter of hundreds of Jews in 1941 in the eastern town of Jedwabne.
A spokesperson for the Warsaw district prosecutor’s office told AP that prosecutors were conducting a preliminary investigation into Braun’s potential denial of Nazi crimes.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned the remarks. “This blatant Holocaust denial fuels antisemitism, spreads hate, and desecrates the memory of millions murdered by the Nazis,” a ministry spokesperson posted on X. Braun “should be brought to justice for these crimes—the sooner, the better,” the post continued.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk described Braun’s words as “a disgrace,” adding, “We must do everything so that no one in the world associates Poland with such people, such faces and such actions.”
Earlier on Thursday, Braun had attended a ceremony at Jedwabne, where far-right activists had gathered for the inauguration of a so-called memorial area that they had set up without a permit. Placed near the official commemoration site for at least 340 Jews murdered by Poles in 1941, the area features boulders with plaques blaming the Nazis for the murders, and revisiting Communist crimes, allegedly perpetrated by Jews.
Israel’s embassy in Poland also condemned that event, writing in a statement: “Instead of honoring the victims, we witnessed manipulation. Antisemitic and pro-Palestinian slogans were used, inciting hatred and confirming that the Holocaust is still being politicized and exploited to distort history,” read the statement.
Revisionist historians and nationalistic activists have insisted that Poles were solely victims of Nazi savagery and did not perpetrate atrocities against Jews during World War II. Before September 1939, a total of 3 million Jews lived in Poland, almost all of them murdered—about 90%—during the war.
In 2018, the Polish legislature made it illegal to blame Poles for Nazi crimes, a move that caused political friction between Warsaw and Jerusalem.
The Nazis also murdered millions of non-Jewish Poles, and many Poles hid, rescued and saved Jews during the Holocaust.
