A well-known Polish politician’s call for the demolition of the New Synagogue in the city of Poznan has drawn fierce criticism from Polish Jewish leaders, as well as an anti-racism group. A leader of the 12-member Jewish community of Poznan, Alicja Kobus, described Marcin Libicki’s statements as “shocking.”
Another senior member of the community described Libicki as “our own Poznan anti-Semite who the people of Poznan do not agree with.”
Libicki, a member of Poland’s governing Law and Justice Party elected to the European Parliament, argues in the Jan 12 Poznan edition of the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper that building the synagogue was “an openly anti-Polish act” and part of “a plan of a Kulturkampf,” or cultural struggle, “which provided for the cultural minimizing of expressions (also architectural expressions) of Polish and Catholic influences in the city.”
Libikci’s comments reflect a key criticism of Jews in contemporary Poland — that historically Polish Jews were traitors who betrayed Poland to the Prussians and then to the Russians.
The synagogue was built in 1907 while Poznan was under Prussian rule, which was dedicated to eliminating all signs of Polish national aspirations.
Libicki, an art historian from Poznan, writes that the synagogue has no “aesthetic value,” as the Nazis gutted it during their occupation of Poland, chopping off its once-spectacular dome and turning its interior into a swimming pool, a function the former house of worship still holds today.
Because it would be too costly to rebuild — Libicki estimates the price tag at $3.2 million — and because of its unpleasant history, he writes that perhaps it would be better to demolish the synagogue and excavate beneath its foundations to expose the city’s ancient walls, which could serve as a tourist attraction.
Public perceptions of Libicki may be hard to gauge, although Piotr Boyarski, a political reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza in Poznan, said he has a solid base of “traditional Catholic voters.”
However, many of his supporters “are not likely to agree with his ideas about the synagogue,” he added.
The future of the synagogue has long been a subject of debate in Poznan, with an American living in Poznan, Andrew Hingston, calling for a competition including Polish Jews and non-Jews to plan for its future.
The local Jewish community, in cooperation with the Poznan City Council and the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, is seeking to transform the synagogue into a cultural and educational center for ethnic and religious tolerance, explained Piotr Kadlcik, the union’s chairman.
So far, however, they have not been successful in finding a private donor to fund the project.
Libicki is well known for what some observers call eccentric and nationalistic views, but it’s his current political prominence as a representative of Poland in a European legislative body that annoys human rights supporters. Marcin Kornak of Never Again, a Polish anti-racism group and magazine, said, “The extremist activities of Marcin Libicki belong to the lunatic fringe and yet he is an influential member of the ruling party.”
Never Again points out that Libicki has a history of anti-Jewish stances, such as his opposition to property restitution to former Jewish owners. Until recently, he was a member of the National Right Party, an official sister party of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s xenophobic National Front in France.
The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University calls the party “a radical anti-Semitic and racist organization.”
In November, Libicki unsuccessfully tried to get the Poznan public prosecutor to instigate charges against the Simon Wiesenthal Center for slandering the Polish state by stating on its Web site that anti-Semitism existed in Poland.
Libicki claims that the site misleads readers to believe that the 3 million Polish Jews killed by the Nazis were killed by Poles because of the way in which the anti-Semitism reference was placed.
In 2001, Libicki also advocated the release from custody of Henryk Mania while he was on trial for being a guard at the Chelmno death camp. Libicki said a man of Mania’s advanced age should not have to suffer in prison before a verdict was reached.
In a phone interview, Libicki told JTA, “I have no problems with Jews. They have made significant cultural achievements, as poets, for example. It’s all a misunderstanding,” he said, referring to accusations that he was anti-Semitic.
He added that he was a staunch supporter of the State of Israel. Further, he suggested that his stance on the synagogue is actually pro-Jewish.
“It’s not right that there is a Nazi-built swimming pool in a former synagogue where people worshipped. It’s not for me to decide what will be done of course, but I think the city should buy the building back from the Poznan Jewish community and then build a new synagogue at a site where a medieval synagogue once stood,” he said, expressing an opinion that Jewish officials in the country find absurd.
There were approximately 40,000 Jews in the region when the synagogue was built, about 3 percent of the population. Most left before World War II, the remaining 1,500 Jews nearly all died in concentration camps.
The city council has repudiated Libicki’s proposal and so has Poznan’s archbishop, Stanislaw Gadecki, president of the Polish Episcopal Commission for Inter-religious Dialogue.
“I am treating his proposal as a piece of humor and I know the authorities see it the same way. No one takes him seriously.”
But he admitted that “Libicki gets attention” with his proposals.
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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.
