National Revival of Poland - Anti-Semitism and Racism

Anti-Semitism and Racism

The NOP is stated to be an anti-Semitic organisation by a number of government bodies, nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions and individual experts worldwide, such as the United States Department of State, and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). According to The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, the NOP is promoting violent forms of neo-fascism and antisemitism, including Holocaust denial. According to the British historian, Dr John Pollard, neo-Nazi elements in the NOP and their racism and homophobia continue to give rise to concern in other member countries of the European Union. NOP actions were also condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, which claims that the NOP is an openly anti-Semitic extremist organization. According to the magazine The Warsaw voice, the manifesto of the National Revival of Poland, which contains a sentence stating that "Jews will be removed from Poland, and their possessions will be confiscated", is taken directly from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. The magazine also claims that the official greeting gesture used in the party is the Nazi-like gesture of the raised arm.

A number of NOP-related incidents received some media coverage in Poland and abroad. According to the European Roma Rights Centre, on July 3, 1998, NOP supporters vandalised the Roma community centre in Łódź. Along with racist graffiti, swastikas were sprayed onto the office walls. The perpetrators also left behind their signature as NOP - Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski. During the same night, the same group reportedly vandalised the premises of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious group.

In March 2000, in Łódź, swastikas and the slogan "Jews out!" along with NOP symbols were spray-painted on the home of Marek Edelman, who was the deputy commander in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the last of the leaders of the uprising still alive. The incident was condemned by the president and prime minister of Poland, who sent Edelman letters of support and apology.

NOP front organization National-Radical Institute (Instytut Narodowo-Radykalny, INR) was involved in publishing Western and Polish Holocaust denial literature. In 1997, INR published a volume of translated works of Western Holocaust deniers under the title The Myth of the Holocaust. The same year, INR announced that there were no exterminations in gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

In 2006, the NOP was involved in campaigning to free convicted British Holocaust denier David Irving from prison in Austria, and produced a poster containing the slogan "David Irving - Uwolnić prawdę" ("David Irving - Free the truth".)

The party also expressed support for the bombing of Israel at the time of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, with a poster image stating, "Bomby na Izrael - Już czas !!!" ("Bombs against Israel - it's about time!!!"). On August 13, 2006, NOP leader Adam Gmurczyk published a declaration on behalf of the NOP Executive Council titled Izrael musi zostać zniszczony! (Israel must be destroyed!), calling for the international military takeover of Israel, and offering to put administrative control of Jerusalem in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI and his successors.

On April 14, 2007, in Krakow, anti-Semitic slogans were shouted and fascist-like gestures made by the participants of an NOP demonstration. Investigations by the Public Prosecutor’s Office were discontinued on November 26, 2007, as no perpetrators were identified and the case was not classified as an offense.