Regarding: “European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, Third Report in Poland” www.coe.int/ecri.htm

Dear Sirs,

Below please find a short report, which may be useful for the current discussion about the attitude towards Jews in Poland. It is written from the perspective of our Foundation, which covers 60% of the country’s territory and deals with those areas that are out of territorial and financial reach of the existing Jewish communities.

Attached there is a list of anti-Semitic acts that the Foundation for the Preservation of the Jewish Heritage in Poland has reported to the public prosecutor’s office.

Furthermore, the Foundation is aware of several incidents (mostly insults and threats, but also dismissing a person from a state institution) aimed at people protecting Jewish heritage and co-operating with the Foundation who are not Jewish at all. For their request we did not report these incidents and we do not reveal their personal data.

In many cases we have also observed a negative attitude of public administration towards the Foundation, which however cannot be recognized as purely anti-Semitic. In very few places we can count for a positive co-operation concerning both the protection of the heritage and the accomplishment of our right to regain the properties of pre-war Jewish communities. It happens that the regulations are on purpose interpreted in a very restrictive way. That was the case when Foundation, together with the town and district authorities of Frampol, had applied to the Council of Memory of Fight and Martyrdom for financial support for fencing mass graves at the Frampol Jewish cemetery. The Council refused our request because the mass graves are located on a religious cemetery, and religious cemeteries are not within the Council’s jurisdiction. An interesting thing is that the Jewish cemetery in Frampol is in fact the property of the State Treasury. Earlier the Council had refused to support the town of Golub-Dobrzyń in restoring a devastated monument commemorating Jews murdered during World War II.

Devastations of cemeteries are especially painful because they cause indivertible damage to the last material traces of Jewish presence in Poland. The problem concerns also those cemeteries that were recently restored (e.g. in Strzegowo). The objects (cemeteries, synagogues) that are still the property of the State Treasury or the district authorities are neither restored nor protected. They often become even illegal rubbish dumps (e.g. in Krosno) and the responsible institutions do nothing about it. However, when a cemetery is regained by a Jewish community or the Union of Jewish Communities and then transmitted to the Foundation, the new owner is immediately obliged to clean it up and restore it. In Lubartów, where the Jewish cemetery is in fact a public square in the centre of the town, the Warsaw Jewish Community was forced to pay a fine 13.000 PLN for not keeping the real estate in a proper condition (the Foundation repaid this sum to the Community). A similar situation happened in Bydgosz-Fordon, w here the Foundation has regained a synagogue that had belonged to the State Treasury for 60 years and for the last 10 years it was empty and abandoned due to its catastrophic technical condition. When the Foundation became the owner of the building the city’s conservator of monuments ordered us formally to restore the roof of the building – the cost of this operation was estimated for 350.000 PLN. The only way of avoiding this expense was transmitting the ownership of the building to another cultural institution, which could count on better attitude of the local authorities. Sometimes it even happens that local officials attempt to force the Foundation to clean up the cemeteries (often formally registered as the “town’s green area”) that officially still belong to the local authorities. That is the case in Sochaczew, where Jews descending from this town have erected ohels (grave chapels) of important tzadiks (which were already twice devastated); the officials keep calling the Foundation demanding us to clea n up the area of the cemetery. The Foundation has informed the Government’s Spokesman (November 2004) and the Chief Rabbi of Poland (January 2005) in detail about these situations. Even more information concerning the subject can be probably found at the Zespół ds. Monitorowania Rasizmu i Ksenofobii (Team Monitoring Racism and Xenophobia), which is a part of the Departament Wyznań i Mniejszości Narodowych MSWiA (Department of Religions and Ethnic Minorities, Ministry of Interior and Administration).

For all Jews and especially for the Foundation for the Preservation of the Jewish Heritage in Poland, established by the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland, protecting relics of Jewish material culture is a matter of great importance. It is manifested by fencing and commemorating (thanks to the support of several Polish Jews living abroad) Jewish cemeteries all over Poland (just within the last two years in Strzegowo, Zakopane, Mszczonów, Kozienice). Costs of the fencing amount to hundreds of thousands PLN. These sums enrich Polish economy and are a substantial financial supply for local companies. This month we are going to start investments in Kolno, Iłża, Dubienka, Kłodzko and (probably) in Gdańsk-Chełmno. In all these cases it is essential to hire geodesists, architects and other experts, to apply for permissions and to pay treasure charges and taxes. As far as the synagogues are concerned, a most positive example is the reconstruction of the synagogue in Rymanów (May 2005) and the project of saving the renaissance synagogue in Zamość.

As for the attitude towards Jews in the context of the law allowing restitution of the real estates of religious or charitable use (the Law on the Relationship between the State and the Jewish Religious Communities of 20th February 1997, which does not differ from the laws concerning other churches and religious associations), an analysis of the titles appearing in local press can be very suggestive. For example: “Jews come to reclaim what’s theirs” (“Słowo Polskie. Gazeta Wrocławska”, Zgorzelec); “Jews exaggerate? Łaszczów: they reclaimed a real estate that hosts a social care house” (“Dziennik Wschodni”); “Walls full of pain – I am prepared that in the spring we’ll become homeless” (“Gazeta Współczesna”, Łomża); “They don’t want to trade people” (“Kurier poranny”, Suwałki). Jewish claims often become a pretext for closing down schools or hospitals. Local authorities use Jewish claims to justify their unpopular decisions, which are in fact of purely financial character (e.g. in Rzeszów), while the Jewis h side often limits its demands or even abandons them completely for social reasons (as, e.g., in Cracow).

Although the relations between the Polish and the Jewish side can be generally judged as positive, there are still to many examples of the lack of good will in case of several specific decisions concerning the “the Jewish problem”.

It would be unjust, however, not to mention these municipalities, for which the commemoration of their pre-war Jewish citizens does matter and which perceive the cooperation with the Jewish side as a chance for tourist and economic development of their region. Such cases are unfortunately rather rare. They will be discussed in a separate report. The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, through its educational projects and other activities promoting the idea of protecting the monuments of religious minorities, intends to persuade local authorities that material relics of Jewish culture can become a real trump card that will enrich their regions and that there is no need to treat them according to different (worse) standards. Without allies in the local authorities the Jewish side is simply unable to take care of all the 1200 Jewish cemeteries and 300 surviving synagogues. A positive attitude of Polish authorities of all levels will be certainly noticed and appreciated.

All the examples mentioned in this text are fully documented; the documentation is to be found in the Foundation’s archive. According to facts described above it must be stated that the ECRI report is generally true.
The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland.

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