Israeli supporters of Maccabi Haifa Israeli football team have been slammed by the Polish authorities as well as the Israeli embassy in Poland for displaying a banner during a match calling Poles “Murderers since 1939” and desecrating a Polish flag.
The game between Maccabi Haifa and Polish team Raków Częstochowa, which the Israeli team lost 0-2, eliminating them from the European Conference League, was held in the Hungarian city of Debrecen on August 14 because Israel is currently not considered safe territory for away teams due to the war in Gaza.
The Israeli fans travelled to Debrecen and displayed a banner in English calling Poles “Murderers since 1939”, suggesting that Poles were responsible for the deaths of Jews during the Second World war.
The banner put up by Israeli fans seemed a response to one displayed by Raków fans in the southern Polish city of Częstochowa during the first leg of the tie with Maccabi Haifa on August 7, which read: “Israel kills and the world is silent.”
Both clubs are likely to be punished by football authority UEFA for displaying political banners and Polish clubs have been punished in the past for displays of banners critical of Germany and immigration.
Polish President Karol Nawrocki called the behaviour of the Israeli fans “scandalous” and “insulting the memory of Polish citizens, the victims of World War Two, including three million Jews”.
After the match, Poland Government spokesman Adam Szłapka called on UEFA to make a “clear response” to the “outrageous behaviour of Israeli fans towards Poland and Poles”. A number of other government ministers also issued similar condemnations and demands.
The head of Poland’s football association, Cezary Kulesza, confirmed that he would urgently ask UEFA to take a position and hold those responsible accountable for what he called the scandalous banner of a “falsification of history”.
The Israeli embassy called the display “disgusting behaviour” that has “no place anywhere”, adding that “these shameful incidents do not reflect the spirit of the majority of Israeli fans”.
There was reaction from US president Donald Trump’s nominee for US ambassador in Poland, Tom Rose.
“I am beyond furious — disgusted, outraged, and ashamed — by the damnable spectacle of anti-Polish hate staged yesterday by Maccabi Haifa ‘fans’,” Rose wrote on X.
“This was not mere hooliganism. It was a depraved, calculated act of venomous slander: A murderous blood libel against a good and decent people. These thugs are not mere haters of Poland—they are traitors to their own people,” he added.
Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, expressed satisfaction with the statement from the Israeli embassy and said he hoped “that Israeli youth are taught that, in 1939, it was Nazi Germany that attacked Poland and began murdering its citizens of all faiths and nationalities”.
Poland was invaded and occupied by both Germany and the USSR in 1939 and it was Germany that was responsible for carrying out the Holocaust on occupied Polish territory and elsewhere.
Neither the then-Polish government in exile nor the underground ever collaborated with the Germans, and Poles themselves suffered persecution and mass killings at the hands of the occupiers.
There are more Poles than any other nationality among those honoured by Israel for saving Jews from the Holocaust.
Nevertheless, Poland and Israel have had disagreements over the history of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
In 2021 the two countries recalled their respective ambassadors due to a dispute over restitution legislation which Israel alleged would make it difficult for descendants of Holocaust survivors to reclaim or be compensated for property lost during or after the war.
There have also been tensions over Poland attempting to restrict Holocaust research that attempted to implicate individual Poles in the robbing and killing of Jews. Also problematic were Israeli Holocaust trips to Poland being escorted by Israeli armed guards and isolating the students from meeting Poles.
Antisemitism has been condemned by both the Polish Left and Right in democratic Poland.
A Polish right-wing politician Grzegorz Braun, though, who polled more than six per cent in the presidential election this spring, has made hostility to Jews and Israel his trademark.
That has included actions such as him putting out a Hanukkah menorah in the Polish parliament, disrupting the honouring of the victims of the October 7 2023 Hamas attack and questioning the existence of gas chambers in Auschwitz in a radio interview.
