The incoming US ambassador to Poland, Thomas Rose, has criticised the Times of Israel for calling Polish president-elect Karol Nawrocki a “Holocaust revisionist”.
Sharing a link on social media to a Times of Israel article about independent candidate Nawrocki, Rose, who lived in Israel for 10 years when he was the publisher of The Jerusalem Post, wrote on June 3: “What an utter and libellous DISGRACE this article is. SHAME on ToI [Times of Israel].”
The Polish foreign ministry also issued a more nuanced statement, calling the description of Nawrocki, who was backed by the opposition Conservatives (PiS), as a Holocaust Revisionist “unfair and unjustified”.
Rose was an appointee of US President Donald Trump, who himself backed Nawrocki by granting him an audience in the Oval Office. The US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was in Poland just days before the presidential election run-off last month, speaking in support of the PiS.
On May 31 and June 1 the ToI published material describing Nawrocki as someone who had “made Holocaust revisionism part of his election campaign”.
The paper justified its remarks by saying Nawrocki had wooed voters who in the first round had supported the right-wing maverick Grzegorz Braun MEP, who won more than 6 per cent of the vote.
The ToI said he did that by promising to defend Poland against attacks by Holocaust historians who have alleged that Poles were heavily involved in crimes against Jews during and after the Second World War.
The work of such historians has been criticised by Polish Conservatives and nationalists for, they said, painting a false narrative about Poland during the war. They said such experts had forgotten that, under German Nazi occupation.
It was Nawrocki who, during his tenure at the National Institute of Remembrance, the State body which investigates German Nazi and post-war communist crimes, criticised prominent Holocaust researchers. He claimed they failed to take account of the Polish underground’s support for the Jews during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In its articles, the ToI also pointed to the fact that, during his campaign, Nawrocki pledged that, if he won the election, he would end the longstanding annual practice of inviting Polish-Jewish leaders to the presidential palace for a ceremony to light Hanukkah candles.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Paweł Wroński told the Polish Press Agency (PAP): “We sent a letter to the editor indicating that the use of the term ‘Holocaust revisionist’ is unfair, imprecise and that Nawrocki’s remarks refer to academic discussions that are taking place in Poland.”
But Wroński also insisted the ministry was not taking sides in such debates.
“We are only saying that the president-elect should not be referred to in this way,” he said. “We accept the editors’ right to make an evaluation but this evaluation using this particular term in Poland evokes very dangerous connotations.”
Poland and Israel have clashed regularly over Holocaust history, with some in Israel accusing Warsaw of seeking to whitewash Polish involvement in crimes committed against Jews during the war.
In 2023, Poland’s then-PiS government agreed with the Israeli Government on the resumption of Holocaust study trips to Poland for Israeli youths. They had previously been suspended over disagreements on security issues and lack of contact with Polish counterparts during these tours.
The deal was criticised by Israeli opposition figures and historians as a backdown at a time when Israel should be pressing Poland to compensate Jews for property taken over by the Polish State after the war.
The current centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been critical of the Israeli Government under PM Benjamin Netanyahu regarding Gaza. Despite that, he decided to give the Israeli PM the right of free passage if he wanted to visit Auschwitz on the 80th anniversary of its liberation, despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest.
The Tusk-led government has irritated the PiS opposition recently by appointing controversial Holocaust historian Barbara Engelking to head up the Board of the Auschwitz Museum.
She had claimed: “Jews often had more to fear from Poles than Germans” and in a TV interview said that “for Jews, death was a tragedy, a spiritual experience, whereas for Poles it was a biological one”.
