Entry forbidden to Jews
The World Jewish Congress is deeply disturbed and disappointed by the Polish government’s apparent failure to intervene to remove a flagrantly antisemitic banner at the entrance to a guest house near the western city of Wroclaw, and to prosecute those responsible for posting it.
The sign at the Dom Polski guest house in Cesarzowice declared “Entry forbidden to Jews, Commies, and all thieves and traitors of Poland,” against a red and white backdrop, Poland’s national colors.
WJC CEO Robert Singer said that the sign “conjures up memories of ghetto benches and other chilling manifestations of antisemitism in Poland in the late 1930s. Given Poland’s history, we would have expected the authorities to act forcefully and swiftly to put a stop to such activity, which is illegal and utterly contravenes the democratic norms Warsaw is committed to upholding.”
According to press reports, the guest house belongs to Piotr Rybak, who is known for a number of antisemitic actions including the burning of a Jew in effigy on the main market square in Wroclaw (for which he was sentenced to a jail term) and for publicly insulting first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda for her Jewish origins.
