WJC President Ronald S. Lauder responded Monday to the rift between Israel and Poland, which came to a head this weekend when Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki canceled Poland’s participation in the Visegrad group summit over the latest round in the ongoing controversy regarding the extent to which individual Poles played a role in the Holocaust.
“As someone who has been deeply engaged in promoting Polish-Jewish understanding for over three decades, I can only decry the deterioration in relations between Israel and Poland. It is unfortunate for both Jews and Poles that obnoxious and offensive stereotypes that have caused so much pain and suffering on both sides over the years continue to circulate,” Lauder said.
“Such language should have no place in civilized discourse. How sad to think that decades of cooperation and goodwill are now in jeopardy. Let us all work together to overcome this crisis, which has been a victory for the forces of intolerance and narrow-mindedness—and a terrible stain on the societies of both peoples,” he said.
