‘BROWN BOOK’ – A MEMENTO

To mark the International Human Rights Day, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has published a new edition of the ‘BROWN BOOK’, which constitutes documentation of hate crimes, racist and xenophobic incidents. This report collects acts of violence and examples of extremist hate speech in Poland in 2019.

– ‘Memory of the tragic past obligates us to take responsibility for words, especially in the age of the internet and its unlimited range’ – said Dr. Anna Tatar from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, the main author of the ‘Brown Book’. She added, ‘In this monitoring project we note numerous cases of language used in order to incite hatred against entire groups. This propaganda is conducive to physical aggression’.

In the ‘Brown Book’, during the last few months the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association noted numerous acts of violence against people belonging to sexual minorities in particular. Contempt for these people manifests itself in public announcements of politicians and journalists, as well as members of the clergy. In recent elections to the Sejm (the Polish Parliament), seats were won by extreme-right activists under the banner of the Confederation (Konfederacja) group, which demands punishments such as ‘flogging’ for homosexuality (Grzegorz Braun), announces ‘kicking out of LGBT from Polish public space’ (Robert Winnicki), or ‘slaughtering of those elite groups which promote deviancy’ (Janusz Korwin-Mikke).

The ‘Brown Book’ documents selected incidents from 2019, such as: beatings, damage to cemeteries and monuments dedicated to minorities, extreme nationalist demonstrations, racist and homophobic insults, cases of hate speech in the media, and acts of discrimination, as well as ideologically motivated signs of hostility towards minority groups. The list also includes examples of incidents in which football fans took part, amongst other acts, the unfurling of racist and xenophobic flags in stadiums, or shouting offensive slogans during football games.

Some of the many incidents documented in the ‘Brown Book’ include:

On a Warsaw municipal public transport bus, two men attacked a sixteen-year-old high school student for homophobic reasons. (Zabki near Warsaw, 3rd January).

A group of assailants shouted xenophobic abuse and assaulted a citizen of Ukraine who was an employee of a transport company. During a taxi ride, they demanded that the driver change the music to ‘disco polo’. When he refused, they stated that he ‘does not respect the country, to which he came’, abused him verbally, and shouted ‘You f…ing Ukrainian, go back to where you came from,’ (Warsaw, the night of 8th March).

One resident of a housing complex attacked his neighbour for homophobic reasons. He shouted, ‘You faggot!’, and punched him in the face with his fist (Warsaw, 14th March).

Unknown perpetrators damaged a plaque commemorating Jews murdered by the Nazi Germans during World War Two. Two swastikas were painted on the stone plaque (Otwock, 6th April).

Residents of the town of Pruchnik took part in a rite known as the ‘hanging of Judas’ which has antisemitic undertones. They dragged an effigy through the streets, flogged it with sticks, and finally set fire to the huge straw doll, which resembled a stereotypical Orthodox Jew (Pruchnik, April 19).

On the wall of a Jewish cemetery, someone painted a set of gallows with the word ‘Jude’ (Jew in German) hung from them (Oswiecim, 21st April).

Two men attacked a black student from the United States who was participating in a Holocaust research tour (Warsaw, 30th May).

In an elementary school, an eleven-year-old pupil with Asperger’s Syndrome, was harassed. The school principal as well as one teacher reportedly humiliated her, derided her, called her names, and threatened her (Szynkielow, 11th June).

An unidentified man used racist name-calling and brutally attacked a citizen of India (Aleksandrow Lodzki, 21st June).

A man attacked a woman wearing a hijab and her three-month-old baby. He shouted: ‘Get the f…ck out, you dirty people,’ and made the gesture of the fascist ‘Heil Hitler’ salute, shouting ‘White power!’ (Rzeszow, 2nd August).

Four assailants mugged and verbally abused an employee of a kebab bar who was a citizen of Bangladesh (Lodz, night of 21st September).

A parking attendant attacked a citizen of Egypt for racist reasons. He shouted at him, ‘F…k off from our country’ (Lodz, 15th October).

The initiator and creator of the ‘Brown Book’ for many years was the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), the founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. Its title was inspired by the history of anti-Nazi resistance. This documentation has continued for over twenty years, and has earned international recognition as the most reliable and independent source of information related to xenophobic violence in Poland.

In 2019, the ‘Brown Book’ has won the support of the Citizens Fund, governed by the Fund for Poland under the honorary patronage of Adam Bodnar, the Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman). In 2018 he received the Norwegian Thorolf Rafto Prize, awarded for championing human rights and independent judiciary in Poland. In accordance with the wishes of Adam Bodnar, this prize was donated to the Citizens Fund to promote human rights activism in Poland.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organisation established in Warsaw in 1996. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has campaigned against racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, both in Poland and internationally.

The selection of racist and xenophobic incidents for 2019, documented in the ‘Brown Book’ can be found in: https://www.nigdywiecej.org//docstation/com_docstation/172/brown_book_2019.pdf

More information:

www.neveragainassociation.org

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7 lutego 2019

HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD FOR ‘NEVER AGAIN’ CO-FOUNDER

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s co-founder Rafal Pankowski received this year’s Paul Ehrlich-Gunther K. Schwerin Human Rights Award.

The Award was established in 1998 by the US-based Anti-Defamation League to honour those who have fought antisemitism throughout Europe. The award was presented by the ADL’s Director of European Affairs Andrew Srulevitch during his visit to Poland on 6 February 2019.

In the preceding months, Rafal Pankowski had been subjected to numerous public attacks for his work in documenting and countering antisemitism and xenophobia. Several days before the handing of the award, government-controlled TV labelled the Warsaw-born researcher as ‘a horrible person’, ‘belonging to the worst sort of Poles’ who ‘lives from a hatred of his own fatherland’. In response, the Polish Human Rights Commissioner Adam Bodnar initiated a formal complaint to the National Council of Radio and Television in protest against the hateful language used on air.

In 2018, Rafal Pankowski (who is also a Sociology Professor at Warsaw’s Collegium Civitas) authored the widely discussed article detailing the resurgence of antisemitic discourse in Polish media and politics, published by the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. Over the years he has cooperated with numerous think tanks and academic institutions including, among others, Chatham House (London), the Institute of Human Sciences (Vienna), and the Centre for European Studies at Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok).

He was recently included in the annual ‘J100’ list announced by editors of The Algemeiner, a New York-based Jewish weekly. The list recognizes one hundred people who made positive contribution to the life of the Jewish communities in the last year and, besides political figures, it has included actress Sharon Stone, the UK’s Prince William and Indian conductor Zubin Mehta, among others. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ co-founder was commended for his role in opposing antisemitism and racism.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has campaigned against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

More information:

Rafal Pankowski, ‘The Resurgence of Antisemitic Discourse in Poland’, ‘Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs’, July 2018: http://bit.ly/2Typpl2

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
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30 maja 2018

THE MESSAGE OF NEVER AGAIN HEARD IN NEW YORK, NEW ORLEANS, LONDON, CAMBRIDGE, WARSAW, ST. PETERSBURG, MOSCOW AND BERLIN IN JUST ONE MONTH

The month of May has been particularly intensive for the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s international work. The Warsaw-based anti-racism organization has participated in events and debates on the growth of the far right internationally.

‎In the US, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ took part in a series of meetings with its friends and partners including organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), the Museum of Jewish Heritage – a Living Monument to the Holocaust as well as US media representatives. In New Orleans, a ‘NEVER AGAIN’ representative spoke at a public event about the rise of the far right in the US and in Europe, held at Tulane University Law School.

‎- ‘Look at Charlottesville or the far-right marches in Warsaw, they have much in common. Right-wing extremism has grown on both sides of the Atlantic and we have to combat it together’ – said ‘NEVER AGAIN’s Rafal Pankowski.

In London, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ provided expertise to BBC and through the broadcast warned against discernible efforts by Polish extremist groups to recruit supporters in Britain. The topic was also discussed with the participation of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ at the UK-Poland Roundtable on Countering Hate,‎ held at the British Embassy in Warsaw.

In Cambridge (UK), Rafal Pankowski was invited by the prestigious Cambridge Union debating society to speak at a debate on the forthcoming football World Cup in Russia, including the challenges of racism and xenophobia‎.

ln the run up to the tournament, the work of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ in counteracting the scourge of racism in East European football, using sports as a tool for the promotion of intercultural dialogue and peace, was also showcased at the international workshop on ‘Rethinking Radicalisation: Frontline Perspectives’‎ held at the Centre for Youth Studies, Higher School of Economics in St.Petersburg (Russia) under the auspices of the European-wide research project Dialogue About Radicalization and Equality (DARE), led by the University of Manchester.

Also in the run-up to the World Cup, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has been a partner of the Polish Film Festival in Russia. More than 100 films are shown, including many with a human rights angle such as ‘Birds are singing in Kigali’ (by Krzysztof and Joanna Krauze) about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The Festival features meetings, film workshops, concerts and exhibitions. It started in Moscow and after that it sets out on a trail into the Russian interior and will visit cities such as Yekaterinburg, Barnaul, Novorosiysk, Tver, Rostov on Don, Krasnodar, Orenburg, Nizhny Novogrod, Great Novogrod, Great Wielkim, Torżhok, Petrozavodsk, Visokovsk and Biysk.

Rafal Pankowski, a co-founder of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ and Associate Professor at Collegium Civitas, was also invited to deliver the annual Robert Wistrich Memorial lecture on antisemitism at the Centrum Judaicum in Berlin (located at the historic New Synagogue), on the last day of the busy month. The lecture is organized by the Berlin International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism (BICSA)‎.

-‎ ‘The current crisis of democratic values and the spectacular rise of antisemitism, racism and xenophobia in East-Central Europe must be noted with real concern. International solidarity is very crucial in times like this. We shall overcome’ – said the representative of ‘NEVER AGAIN’.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. The mission of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is to promote multicultural understanding and to contribute to the development of a democratic civil society in Poland and in the broader region of Central and Eastern Europe.

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

9 kwietnia 2018

COMMEMORATING THE KISHINEV POGROM

In April 2018, the 115th anniversary of the Kishinev Pogrom is marked. This year, the Jewish Community of the Republic of Moldova, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and the Jewish Cultural Center KEDEM launch an awareness campaign, which includes a series of articles and materials disseminated in both local and international mass-media. A thematic exhibition has been inaugurated in the central park in Chisinau (Kishinev), the capital of Moldova, and then displayed in the local schools.

‘On reading the first newspapers reports I perceived the monstrosity of the event and experienced a mixed feeling of compassion for the innocent victims and amazement at the extent of human brutality…’ (Leo Tolstoy about the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903).

Jews have lived on the territory of present-day Moldova (known as Bessarabia) for over 600 years, contributing to the development of the country. During this period, the local community experienced various times, including difficult ones. The 1903 Kishinev Pogrom made the town sadly known all over the world.

According to the data of the 1897 official census carried out in the Russian Empire, there were 230,000 Jews living in the Province of Bessarabia amounting to over 12% of the total population. In Kishinev the percentage was even higher and reached 46% of the population.

The pretext for the Pogrom was centuries old blood libel; Jews were blamed for killing a boy in Dubossary, a town not far from Kishinev. The antisemitic propaganda used it and called for revenge. The Pogrom broke out on Easter and lasted three days. 49 people were killed, about 600 wounded, almost one third of buildings that belonged to Jews – destroyed or damaged.

The Kishinev Pogrom foreshadowed further persecutions of Jews, a series of pogroms in Bessarabia and neighbouring Ukraine in 1905, a prefiguration of the Holocaust. Bloody pogroms of 1903-1905 led to mass emigration of Jews from the Russian Empire to Eretz Israel, USA, South Africa, Latin America and Canada. As Theodor Herzl wrote after the Kishinev Pogrom, ‘The feeling of unity among the Jewish people has not found a manifestation so powerful or so tragic for many centuries.’

– ‘What can we do now, 115 years after?! The message is very clear: we have to counteract inter-ethnic and inter-religious intolerance, combat antisemitism using all the possible means, work with the authorities, reach out and engage the youth, the media, speaking out loud about such tragedies that changed our history to avoid repetition’ – stated Alexander Bilinkis, the President of the Jewish Community of the Republic of Moldova.

– ‘There are certain lessons to be learnt from the Kishinev pogroms in 1903 and 1905, especially today when we observe a rise of antisemitism and xenophobia in Europe. Historically multicultural societies such as Moldova are not immune from that. We as the NEVER AGAIN Association feel a duty to join the campaign and spread the word internationally’ – said Natalia Sineaeva-Pankowska of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association.

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

25 marca 201827 marca 2018

“NEVER AGAIN” TARGETED FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST ANTISEMITISM

The “NEVER AGAIN” Association spoke out against the current wave of antisemitism in Poland and it became a target of a hostile campaign by a Polish official.

Since late January, Poland has witnessed a series of outrageous statements in media and politics in connection with debates around the so-called “history law” prohibiting defamation of “the Polish state and nation”.

For example, Beata Mazurek, the Polish Parliament’s deputy Speaker and spokesperson of the ruling party tweeted the words: “From now on it will be difficult to look at Jews with sympathy and friendship”. Jacek Zalek, a deputy chairman of the ruling party faction in the Parliament, said in a televised interview: if the Poles are held responsible for the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom “than one might conclude that if the Jewish police was responsible for leading Jews to the gas chambers, than the Jews themselves created the Holocaust for themselves.” Kornel Morawiecki MP said in a recent interview: “Do you know who chased the Jews away to the Warsaw Ghetto? The Germans, you think? No. The Jews themselves went because they were told that there would be an enclave, that they would not have to deal with those nasty Poles.” The “NEVER AGAIN” Association has documented dozens of similar comments made in the last weeks.

Members of the “NEVER AGAIN” Association have protested against the wave of antisemitism through numerous interventions in Polish and international media. They also took part in several high-level international meetings where they discussed the current situation. The meetings included the Polish-British Belvedere Forum held in London on 19-20 February with the participation of officials and intellectuals, including Professor Norman Davies and the UK Envoy for Holocaust Issues Sir Eric Pickles. “NEVER AGAIN” was also represented at the round-table of the European Council for Tolerance and Reconciliation held in Monaco on 5-6 March with the participation of former British prime minister Tony Blair, Prince Albert of Monaco, and historian Sir Antony Beevor, among others.

On 19-21 March, the “NEVER AGAIN” Association was represented at the Global Forum for Combatting Antisemitism held in Jerusalem with the participation of the President of Bulgaria Roumen Radev, former French prime minister Manuel Valls, the president of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder and numerous other figures. “NEVER AGAIN” co-founder Rafal Pankowski was invited to speak on the Forum’s panel about historical revisionism and antisemitism in Eastern Europe. His presentation consisted mostly of examples of controversial statements made by public figures in the last weeks, with minimum commentary. He pointed to the existence of Polish civil society initiatives against antisemitism as a positive sign and he was subsequently congratulated for his talk by numerous conference participants.

Upon conclusion of the Global Forum, a hostile social media campaign was launched by Andrzej Pawluszek, an adviser to the Polish Prime Minister. Pawluszek was also present at the Forum, but did not take the floor. Instead, he published a number of tweets calling the “NEVER AGAIN” presentation “an incredible scandal”. He alleged “Pankowski did not have much to say, nothing concrete, he just quoted supposedly <antisemitic> statements of politicians.” He also added: “It is sad that a Pole had nothing nice to say about his own country.”

Pawluszek’s smears were retwitted by, among others, Deputy Speaker of the Senate Adam Bielan and Krzysztof Ziemiec, the anchor of the main news programme on state-controlled TV. Rafal Ziemkiewicz, a Polish TV commentator notorious for using antisemitic language who has 155,000 twitter followers, posted his own comment in response: “the problem is the home-made rascal”.

Pawluszek’s campaign was also taken up by Krzysztof Bosak, a deputy leader of the extreme-right Nationalist Movement party (Ruch Narodowy, RN), who has 140,000 followers on twitter. He began his own series of posts by exclaiming: “Warning, another representative of academia defaming Poland”. Bosak’s post was retweeted by, among others, Sebastian Kaleta, a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Justice.

Not surprisingly, the above mentioned posts resulted in a large number of hostile and threatening comments, for example:

“Why can’t we put TNT in the ass of this Pankowski?”

To Pawluszek: “Couldn’t you punch him in the face on our behalf? We would collect money for a possible punishment.”

“Pankowski went there to earn his Judas’ shekels.”

“Disgusting, who employs him?”

“But is this gentleman really Polish? Or maybe he only has Polish documents? It would explain his behaviour!”

“A Pole? He is just a Polish-speaking Jewish mongrel dog.”

“There are full-blooded Poles, but there are also such lice, misfits and shabes goyim who cannot be called Poles.”

“We must identify all those pseudo-Poles and show them to society. Only the truth will set us free.”

Rafal Pankowski, who is a sociology professor at Warsaw’s Collegium Civitas, said: – “I am disappointed Mr Pawluszek did not wish to discuss any issues at the Global Forum in Jerusalem, but resorted to an online campaign. Such behaviour is unworthy of a public official, but it is unfortunately emblematic of the current climate of xenophobia.”

The “NEVER AGAIN” Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. The mission of the “NEVER AGAIN” Association is to promote multicultural understanding and to contribute to the development of a democratic civil society in Poland and in the broader region of Central and Eastern Europe. It received personal endorsements from figures such as Jan Karski, Simon Wiesenthal and Barack Obama, among others.

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

28 stycznia 2017

FROM AUSCHWITZ TO CAMBODIA’S KILLING FIELDS: THE MESSAGE OF ‘NEVER AGAIN’ IN PHNOM PENH

Representatives of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association have participated in a week-long series of meetings and discussions‎ held in Phnom Penh on the occasion of the Cambodian Victory Over Genocide Day and the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The participants paid tribute to the victims of the totalitarian Khmer Rouge regime at‎ the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum‎ (former S-21 prison) and the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek.

The programme also included a visit to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and discussions with its high-level officials.

The international expert conference entitled ‘Dealing with the Past: Engaging in the Present’ was organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation Cambodia Office, the German Agency for International Cooperation, and the One Earth Future Foundation on 20-27 January.

Natalia Sineaeva discussed the challenges of Holocaust commemoration and the experiences of the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews POLIN during the panel on ‘The Role of Museums and Institutions in Genocide Education’ together with Visoth Chhay (Director of Tuol Sleng Museum), Andreas Ljungholm (Raoul Wallenberg Institute) and Keo Duong (Bophana Centre). The panel was moderated by Dara Bramson (New York Museum of Jewish Heritage / Auschwitz Jewish Center).

Rafal Pankowski presented the activities of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association in the field of monitoring hate speech and hate crime. He was also one of the keynote speakers during a special session on ‘Dealing with the Legacy of the Holocaust’ introduced by the German Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia, Dr‎ Ingo Karsten.

– ‘I am deeply moved by the visit to the killing fields in Cambodia’ ‎- said Rafal Pankowski. – ‘The message of NEVER AGAIN is indeed universal and we look forward to continued cooperation with our new partners in the field of commemoration, peace building and human rights education.’

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association will be represented by Rafal Pankowski‎ during a debate on xenophobia held in Cambridge (UK) on 28 January. Adam Bodnar, Poland’s Ombudsman (Human Rights Commissioner) who has been a ‘NEVER AGAIN’ activist, will join the panel, too. Other speakers at the conference, organized by the Cambridge University Polish Society, include former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and current Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Other presentations of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association‎ activities and research findings planned for February include forthcoming seminars at the Polish University in London (PUNO) as well as at St. Antony’s ‎College (University of Oxford).

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a Warsaw-based anti-racist educational and monitoring organization established in 1996.

More information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ