The so-called civic patrols against migrants, brutal assaults on an Azerbaijani student and several Indians at a worker hostel, are just a few examples of racism and xenophobia in Poland from recent weeks. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has published the new ‘Brown Book’, which documents some of the attacks on minorities that happened in 2023 and 2024.
Dr. Anna Tatar, who co-authored the report, explains, ‘This escalation of violence comes as no surprise. We have warned countless times that when politicians instigate fear or hostility towards migrants and refugees, street violence will always follow’.
‘NEVER AGAIN’s ‘Brown Book’ lists racist and xenophobic physical assaults, acts of discrimination, and desecrations of cemeteries or monuments to the Holocaust. It includes racist incidents committed by football hooligans, too. In addition, the report documents hate speech in the Polish public debate, especially on social media.
Rafal Pankowski, co-founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, Professor at Warsaw-based Collegium Civitas, and Rotary Peace Fellow at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, says, ‘Hatred towards minorities is a global issue. This is why solidarity with all the victims of discrimination and violence is so important’.
The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association was founded in 1996 as an independent anti-racist organisation, which runs the ‘Brown Book’: ongoing documentation of events with xenophobic and antisemitic context in Poland. Its initiator was the long-time leader of ‘NEVER AGAIN’, Marcin Kornak (born 1968, died 2014).
Between 1 September 2023 and 15 October 2024, the ‘Brown Book’ monitoring was supported by the Henryk Wujec Civic Fund.
In September 2024, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association was awarded the prestigious Ronald Eissens and Suzette Bronkhorst Award for ‘exceptional work in combatting online hate and promoting human rights’.
The incidents described in the new ‘Brown Book’ by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ include:
- LODZ. On the night of 25/26 March 2023, a group of a dozen or so people, men and women, attacked two Ukrainians. The aggressors shouted at them, ‘We hate you, you are from Ukraine, out back home!’ and four thugs brutally beat them: they punched them, knocked them to the ground and kicked them. The Ukrainians were taken to the hospital, one of them had a broken jaw and rib, the other bruised kidneys and a damaged tooth.
- WROCLAW. On 30 June 2023, a teacher from the Philippines was attacked by an unknown woman. The attacker insulted her and threatened her with violence and death. She shouted, ‘I f*cking hate you! Because you are all cruel and evil. You transmit various diseases’.
- RACIBORZ. On 15 August 2023, a dark-skinned teenager who had left a kebab shop was insulted and threatened by a passer-by. The man shouted to him, ‘You fcking Pki, get the fck out of here, I’ll fck you up’.
- PIEKOSZOW. On 21 October 2023, one of the locals, 36-year-old Szczepan B., brutally beat a twelve-year-old boy from Ukraine. ‘The perpetrator insulted but also beat, punched, kicked the boy’s head and entire body with his legs, causing the child to lose consciousness’.
- WARSAW. On 11 November 2023, the participants of the so-called March of Independence burned flags of the European Union. They also chanted slogans that were racist and xenophobic, ‘White honour, white pride’, ‘White power is and was’, ‘Poland for Poles’, ‘There will be a stick for the leftie snout’. Moreover, the demonstrators displayed banners with the Celtic cross, a flag in the colours of the Third Reich, and banner with the slogan ‘Stop the Ukrainisation of Poland’.
- GDANSK. On 2 January 2024, on Owsiana Street, ‘unknown perpetrators’ destroyed a plaque commemorating the ghetto where Jews from Gdansk and other areas occupied by the Third Reich were held during the World War II.
- WARSAW. On the night of 30 April/1 May 2024, a juvenile perpetrator tried to set fire to the Nozyk Synagogue on Twarda Street. He threw a Molotov cocktail which crashed against the façade near one of the ground floor windows.
- WARSAW. On the night of 24/25 August 2024, a student from Azerbaijan was beaten because of his skin colour. In one of the shops a group of men and a woman flung racist insults at him. The victim reported, ‘They said «Poland for Poles», and they called me a «fcking ngger». […] I got hit on the head with something hard […]. I fell to the ground, and I think I lost consciousness right away. They started hitting me with their hands and kicking me’.
- NOWY SACZ. On 8 September 2024, at the Jewish cemetery on Rybacka Street, several attackers assaulted a group of Jewish tourists who intended to visit the necropolis. The perpetrators hurled antisemitic slurs and threats at them.
- ZYRARDOW. On 21 September 2024, the town witnessed a far-right march, self-described as a ‘civic patrol’. The protesters chanted, ‘This is Poland!’ ‘This is Zyrardow, this is where we’re walking! We are doing what everybody should!’ Moreover, members of the ‘patrol’ brutally assaulted migrants residing at a local worker hostel. Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, and Georgians defended themselves with fire extinguishers. As a result, 70 migrants resigned from their work in Zyrardow.
- SZCZECIN. On 7 October 2024, a Ukrainian taxi driver was assaulted due to his nationality by his passenger. The man started to insult the driver, punched him in the face and head, and shouted, ‘Ukrainian tw*t!’
‘Brown Book 2023-2024’ (full version of the report – PDF)
More information:
www.NeverAgainAssociation.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ
www.linkedin.com/company/never-again-association
The latest edition of the ‘Brown Book’ on more than 300 pages describes cases of physical assaults on the basis of skin colour, language, or religion, as well as acts of verbal aggression. In addition, the report documents street demonstrations with slogans inciting hatred, acts of discrimination against minorities, and fascist banners displayed at football stadiums. Examples of hostility towards refugees from Ukraine can also be found therein.
The National Media channel has over 250,000 subscribers. It produces an average of 100-150 broadcasts per month, some of them have tens of thousands of views.
Since the first days of the Russian invasion, the National Media broadcasts have presented refugees from Ukraine as a threat (including ‘biological’ threat) to the Polish society, denied the Ukrainians’ right to preserve their own national identity (demanding that they ‘polonize’ themselves), and questioned the Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine. The head of the National Media, Robert Bakiewicz, already in 2021 warned against ‘Ukrainian immigration’, which in his view would lead to an ‘ethnic replacement’ in Poland.
According to Rafal Pankowski, Professor of Sociology at Collegium Civitas and co-founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association: – ‘It is symbolic that the first item to be deleted was a hoodie with a Celtic cross (an international symbol of white supremacy), a flag of the Confederacy (which fought to uphold slavery in the American Civil War), and a three-armed swastika used by the South African neo-nazi group Afrikaaner Resistance Movement (AWB).’
The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in 1996. It has campaigned against antisemitism, racism and xenophobia. Since 2005, it has led the ‘Racism-Delete’ campaign, which has the objective of removing racist content from the internet. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a member of the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH). The Association also takes part in projects to counteract online hate speech including ‘Get the Trolls Out’ and ‘Open Code for Hate-Free Communication’.
