One of the casualties in last week’s election of the new leadership of Poland’s Communist Party was Mieczyslaw Moczar, the former Minister of Internal Affairs. Moczar was the Interior Minister during the 1968 official anti-Semitic period in Poland and was responsible for issuing anti-Jewish pamphlets at the time.
Last March, following the anti-Semitic incidents in Poland where ultra-nationalist elements called on Poles to rise up against “Jewish chauvenists,” Moczar met with Stefan Grayek of Israel, chairman of the World Federation of Jewish Fighters and Partisans, in Warsaw and told him that he regretted his anti-Semitic policy in the past and had since then made statements and published articles praising the part played by Jews in Poland’s wartime underground and Jewish contributions to Poland’s economy.
Despite his disavowal of his past, many Jewish leaders in the United States expressed concern last March that his rise to present prominence might encourage anti-Semitic elements. At the time of the anti-Semitic manifestations in Poland, Moczar was a member of the Politburo and was expected to be the next President.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
