Paweł Machcewicz on the Polish anti-Semitism of 1968

Last weekend, Polish President Lech Kaczyński described the expatriation and deportation of around 15,000 Polish Jews 40 years ago as "shameful". Talking to Cezary Michalski, historian Paweł Machcewicz claims Poland rather than the Soviet Union was responsible for the anti-Semitic campaign that started in March 1968. "The anti-Zionist campaign of 1968 was autonomous. There is no evidence that Moscow stipulated either its form or its intensity. Moscow simply demanded that the entire bloc position itself on the right side in the conflict with Israel. The campaign was carried out with enormous zeal by the party apparatus of the Polish communists. Of course the government was not democratically elected because the state was not sovereign at the time, but they were still Poles."

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