Chmielnik – Antisemitic pamphlets were spread across the town prior to the Jewish culture festival in Chmielnik. By manipulation, president Kieltz and the deceased antiquities collector Andrej Metzger were included, among others, in the authors list of these pamphlets. Police has not localized yet the perpetrators of that offense. “Following the expulsion of the Arian Christians, Jews started to gather in Chmielnik, and whoever wants to see again the edge of the Palestinian city taken by Judaism, as if by a garbage fly – he should go to Chmielnik on Saturday. […] the official emblem of Chmielnik has three domelike trees… they eat them, these Jewish goats, just as we don’t get rid of Poland’s Jews” – assertions such as these ones were included in the pamphlets distributed on Sunday to the residents of Chmielnik, including near the church, among other places. Some of the pamphlets were laid also on the windowpanes of cars, and the police discovered one of them hung on a tree and a second one posted on a bulletin board. “They contained contents that could be considered incitement to nationalistic hatred, and up till now, we are still looking for the authors of these pamphlets”, says Gżegoż Dudekar, acting police spokesman in the voivodeship (province) of Świętokrzyskie, in southeastern Poland.
“I’m sorry that such occurrences took place”, emphasizes Yaroslavl Zatorski, mayor of Chmielnik. “This antisemitic act is undoubtedly an attempt to disrupt the “9 Meetings with the Jewish Culture” in Chmielnik and in Szydlow, set to take place beginning on Friday and running until Sunday. That’s a prestigious event held in a town that was inhabited by twelve thousand people before World War II, including ten thousand Jews. Two years ago, the town of Chmielnik and the district of Chmielnik have received a decoration in memory of priest Stanisław Musiał thanks to community initiatives promoting Christian-Jewish and Polish-Jewish dialogue, among other things, due to meetings that are receiving growing attention.
Sadly, there are plenty of nuts. The worst thing is the fact that these pamphlets were massively manipulated, and many well-known people were falsely and deceitfully put on the list of authors”, says mayor Zatorski. The authors of that pamphlet base themselves on the words of priest Jan Vishnievski, who, a hundred years ago, described the ecclesiastical district of our region, and didn’t hide his aversion to Jews. At the same time, they describe the make-up of the commission of editors responsible for the year 2000 reprint of the priest’s writings: Priest and Professor Daniel Olshevski, Professor Adam Masalski, Priest Leshek Skorupa, the late antiquities collector Andrej Metzger and the then Świętokrzystie district governor, and the current president Kieltz Weuzech Luvavski. The reprint was published by the Jednoscz publishing house, with the financial support of the district governor. The authors of the antisemitic contents presented it as if it was a bulletin. “It’s a classic manipulation. Actually, at a given time, the district governor gave his financial support for the reprint of a book written by priest Vishnievski on cultural sites, cities and churches. On the other hand, completely out-of-context citations of this publication were found in this pamphlet and also a reprint of edited passages”, says Agatha Vojda, spokeswoman of the district of Świętokrzyskie.
That manipulated pamphlet reached on Sunday the hands of Professor Stanislaw Żak in front of the church in Chmielnik. “I came early to the holly mass, and when I came out, two young men and an older one were distributing it. When I read it, I was very much shocked by its contents. I started asking people there who were those men that were distributing those pamphlets there, and I found out that they are sympathizers of the PiS party (“Law and Justice” Party, in Polish: Prawo i Sprawiedliwość)”, tells Professor Żak.
The policemen are still looking for the persons that distributed these antisemitic contents. But that was enough time for the sending of a single patrol car there, when the pamphlets were being distributed in front of the church. At that same time, the urban guard commander called the police in concern of that same matter at 10:00 o’clock, but in fact, that patrol arrived there at 16:00 o’clock. “That’s the support we get from the public services. That’s the repercussion of the closing (“liquidation”) of the police commissionership in Chmielnik”, says mayor Zatorski. Yet, the Police deny that they responded so late. “Actually, approximately at 10:00 o’clock, there was a first notice telling that someone was distributing pamphlets, and then a patrol car from Morabiza got there, but it didn’t manage to localize anyone. Later, at 14:00 o’clock, a second piece of information was received. Then, patrol cars of the criminal service, with no identification emblems, were sent there and they found pamphlets and posters hung and posted on two places”, tells Gżegoż Dudek.
