Prompt apologies by Polish officials and the news media last weekend averted a threatened boycott by Israeli and other Jewish groups of ceremonies in Warsaw next April marking the 45th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The apologies were for an item published in Trybuna Ludu, the official organ of the Polish Communist Party, that contained anti-Israel overtones. The item, transmitted abroad by PAP, the Polish news agency, claimed that the Polish committee organizing the ceremonies was concerned over “the current dangerous revisionist and neo-Nazi trends in the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the possible consequences of Israel’s policy of expansion.”
The Israeli government and the World Federation of Former Jewish Fighters, Partisans and Concentration Camp Inmates protested to Warsaw. Federation President Stefan Grayek, who was in Warsaw, complained to Gen. Jozef Kaminski, chairman of the organizing committee.
Following the protests, Trybuna Ludu on Friday amended its earlier report and stressed that the anniversary ceremonies would honor the valor and contributions of Jews to the ultimate victory over Nazism.
He wrote that he “deeply regrets the incident and begs forgiveness for the inaccuracies” in the report published in Trybuna Ludu and transmitted by PAP.
Up to 4,500 expected Jewish visitors from abroad might have canceled plans to attend the Warsaw commemoration had a rift developed between the Polish and Israeli governments.
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