There is "no room for anti-Semitism" in Poland, Europe as a whole and the wider world, a Polish deputy prime minister declared on Wednesday.

Polish Deputy PM and Culture and National Heritage Minister Piotr Gliński speaks at the Warsaw conference on Wednesday. Photo: PAP/Jakub Kamiński

Speaking at the opening of a Polish-Israeli conference in Warsaw, Piotr Gliński said that the Polish people “will never cease to feel responsible for the memory of Polish Jews” who perished in Nazi German death camps and ghettos in occupied Poland during World War II.

This statement by Gliński, who is also Poland’s culture minister, was met with applause by conference participants.

Referring to Poles who helped save Jews from the Holocaust during WWII, Gliński said: "We will never forget those who risked their lives to save their Jewish compatriots."

He added that Poland as a state was making every effort to “meet its obligations” to keep the memory of Polish Jews alive. He mentioned the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in the city of Oświęcim in Poland’s south, and a museum honouring Poles who saved Jews during World War II in the village of Markowa in the southeast of the country.

Warsaw ghetto museum planned

Gliński told the conference that plans were afoot to establish a museum of the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest of all the Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.

He also spoke of plans to support the Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom in Treblinka about 100 km north-east of Warsaw.

"An important part of the Polish heritage is the awareness of the shared heritage of the many generations of Poles and Jews who lived in this land" side by side, he said.

He added that “the world of those days,” though “destroyed by the German Nazi criminals during WWII,” is being revived through Polish-Israeli friendship and cooperation.

‘Aggressive anti-Israelism a new form of anti-Semitism’

Invoking a statement by the leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, Gliński said that in today’s world "aggressive anti-Israelism is a new form of anti-Semitism” and that it “should be countered."

Referring to contemporary Polish-Israeli relations, Gliński declared that Poland, in its role as a member of the European Union and NATO, would continue to work toward bringing the two organisations closer to Israel.

(gs/pk)

Source: PAP