President Lech Walesa of Poland is still trying to erase the image that he is anti-Semitic.
“I have so many times had to prove I’m not. And each time I have tried to persuade people I’m not, everybody believes that I am,” the former Solidarity trade union leader said during a three-day state visit to Britain last week.
“The more I prove, the more they disbelieve,” he said.
Walesa had the same complaint when he visited the United States last month and spoke to Holocaust survivors in Washington on March 21.
Accusations of alleged anti-Semitism on the part of Walesa arose with the bitterly fought political campaign in Poland that culminated in his election to the presidency in December. During that campaign, there were constant anti-Semitic innuendoes aimed at Walesa’s opponent, then Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who, though not Jewish, was lobbed with oblique accusations that he was not “a true Pole.”
Walesa is faulted for having done nothing to restrain the remarks, especially so because of his angry retort that he was “100 percent Polish,” when asked at an election rally if there were not “too many Jews” in the Polish government.
Walesa said he neither created nor exploited anti-Semitism in the election campaign, but admitted it was a major problem in a country with fewer than 10,000 Jews.
“I say wherever anti-Semitism appears, no matter what people think of me, I oppose it,” the Polish leader declared.
He is scheduled to visit Israel in May in an attempt to mend fences with Jews in Poland and abroad. Apart from the symbolic importance, his visit is expected to improve bilateral and commercial relations between Poland and Israel.
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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.
