Polish FM Sikorski: Anti-immigrant hysteria harms Poland

Poland’s foreign minister has condemned racism and anti-Semitism on Saturday, saying they harm Poland.

“Anti-immigrant hysteria harms Poland, it awakens the worst demons, and Holocaust denial excludes us from civilised nations”, – Sikorski said in a recording published on the X platform.

His statement followed a series of incidents in the country, including a statement by far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun in which he proclaimed that “the gas chambers at Auschwitz were fake”.

“Pilecki did not volunteer for Auschwitz so that now some scoundrel undermines his report for political gain,” Sikorski replied. Witold Pilecki, a Polish officer and intelligence agent, let himself get arrested and interned at Auschwitz in 1940 to document what was happening there and escaped from the death camp three years later. Before returning to Poland after the war — where he was executed by the Communist authorities in 1948 — he compiled and published his reports on the genocide at Auschwitz.

In the recording, Sikorski also recalled incidents in Zamość, where artists from Spain, India, Senegal and Serbia, as well as revellers at the 22nd Eurofolk festival which concluded on Sunday, were insulted and the Municipal Police received reports of a “refugee invasion”.

“This is not the only such case in the country,” Sikorski commented.

He also referred to the current situation at the Polish-German border, where members of so-called citizen patrols have been shouting anti-immigrant and anti-German slogans. On 7 July, Poland introduced border controls with Germany and Lithuania in response to growing criticism of Germany’s decision to send back thousands of migrants who they claimed had illegally crossed the border back into Poland.

“We have the right to control the borders by authorised services. We have the right to know who is legally in Poland. But there is no acquiescence to the escalating campaign of racism and the anti-Semitism it fuels,” said the head of Polish diplomacy, adding that as foreign minister, he must take care of Poland’s image around the world.

“I am proud of Poland. Poland has always been a hospitable country, and Poles and Polish women are better than those who ‘rat on strangers and fuel the spiral of hatred,'” the country’s top diplomat stressed.