OD AUSCHWITZ DO PÓL ŚMIERCI W KAMBODŻY

Przedstawiciele Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ wzięli udział w serii spotkań w stolicy Kambodży Phnom Penh z okazji Kambodżańskiego Dnia Zwycięstwa nad Ludobójstwem oraz Międzynarodowego Dnia Pamięci o Ofiarach Holokaustu.‎‎

W Muzeum Ludobójstwa Tuol Sleng (byłym więzieniu S-21) oraz na polach śmierci w Choeung Ek oddali hołd ofiarom totalitarnego reżimu Czerwonych Khmerów.

Program pobytu obejmował również wizytę w międzynarodowym Trybunale powołanym do osądzenia zbrodni reżimu Pol Pota.‎

Podczas konferencji pt. ‘Zmagania z przeszłością, zaangażowanie w teraźniejszość’ zorganizowanej przez Fundację im. Heinricha Bölla, Niemieckie Towarzystwo na rzecz Współpracy Międzynarodowej oraz One World Future Foundation, Natalia Sineaeva wygłosiła referat na temat upamiętniania Holokaustu w Europie Wschodniej (m.in. o działalności Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN). W panelu poświęconym roli muzeów w procesie edukacji o ludobójstwie wzięli udział również Visoth Chhay (dyrektor Muzeum Tuol Sleng), Andreas Ljungholm (Instytut im. Raoula Wallenberga) i Keo Duong (Centrum Bophana). Moderatorem panelu była Dara Bramson z nowojorskiego Muzeum Dziedzictwa Żydowskiego i Centrum Żydowskiego w Oświęcimiu.‎‎ 

Ponadto w trakcie konferencji prof. Collegium Civitas Rafał Pankowski przedstawił działania Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’. Wystąpił także w specjalnej sesji nt. pamięci o Holokauście, którą zainaugurował wykład ambasadora Niemiec w Królestwie Kambodży, dr Ingo Karotena.‎

- ‘Jestem bardzo poruszony tym, co zobaczyłem na dawnych polach śmierci w Kambodży’ - powiedział Rafał Pankowski. - ‘Przesłanie NIGDY WIĘCEJ ma charakter uniwersalny. Mamy nadzieję na kontynuowanie współpracy z naszymi nowymi partnerami w dziedzinie pamięci o historii, budowania kultury pokoju i edukacji o prawach człowieka’.‎

Rafał Pankowski uczestniczył także w debacie na temat ksenofobii zorganizowanej 28 stycznia przez Stowarzyszenie Polskich Studentów na Uniwersytecie w Cambridge (Anglia). W panelu wystąpił również Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich i dawny aktywista Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’, Adam Bodnar. W dyskusji uczestniczył też były Minister Spraw Zagranicznych i Marszałek Sejmu Radosław Sikorski.‎‎

Działalność Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ zostanie zaprezentowana również podczas seminariów organizowanych w lutym 2017 roku przez Polski Uniwersytet na Obczyźnie (PUNO) w Londynie oraz St. Antony’s College na Uniwersytecie w Oksfordzie.‎‎

Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ jest założoną przez Marcina Kornaka w 1996 roku niezależną, apolityczną organizacją ekspercką, która monitoruje incydenty na tle ksenofobicznym oraz wydaje antyrasistowski magazyn ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’. Prowadzi kampanie społeczne, m.in. ‘Muzyka Przeciwko Rasizmowi’ i ‘Wykopmy Rasizm ze Stadionów’.‎

Dodatkowe informacje:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ‎

FROM AUSCHWITZ TO CAMBODIA'S KILLING FIELDS: THE MESSAGE OF ‘NEVER AGAIN’ IN PHNOM PENH

Representatives of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’Association have participated in a week-long series of meetings and discussions‎ held in Phnom Penh on the occasion of the Cambodian Victory Over Genocide Day and the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The participants paid tribute to the victims of the totalitarian Khmer Rouge regime at‎ the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum‎ (former S-21 prison) and the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek.

The programme also included a visit to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and discussions with its high-level officials.

The international expert conference entitled ‘Dealing with the Past: Engaging in the Present’ was organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation Cambodia Office, the German Agency for International Cooperation, and the One Earth Future Foundation on 20-27 January.

Natalia Sineaeva discussed the challenges of Holocaust commemoration and the experiences of the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews POLIN during the panel on ‘The Role of Museums and Institutions in Genocide Education’ together with Visoth Chhay (Director of Tuol Sleng Museum), Andreas Ljungholm (Raoul Wallenberg Institute) and Keo Duong (Bophana Centre). The panel was moderated by Dara Bramson (New York Museum of Jewish Heritage / Auschwitz Jewish Center).

Rafal Pankowski presented the activities of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association in the field of monitoring hate speech and hate crime. He was also one of the keynote speakers during a special session on ‘Dealing with the Legacy of the Holocaust’ introduced by the German Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia, Dr‎ Ingo Karsten.

- ‘I am deeply moved by the visit to the killing fields in Cambodia’ ‎- said Rafal Pankowski. - ‘The message of NEVER AGAIN is indeed universal and we look forward to continued cooperation with our new partners in the field of commemoration, peace building and human rights education.’

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association will be represented by Rafal Pankowski‎ during a debate on xenophobia held in Cambridge (UK) on 28 January. Adam Bodnar, Poland’s Ombudsman (Human Rights Commissioner) who has been a ‘NEVER AGAIN’ activist, will join the panel, too. Other speakers at the conference, organized by the Cambridge University Polish Society, include former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and current Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Other presentations of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association‎ activities and research findings planned for February include forthcoming seminars at the Polish University in London (PUNO) as well as at St. Antony’s ‎College (University of Oxford).

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a Warsaw-based anti-racist educational and monitoring organization established in 1996.

More information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

RADIO MARYJA CRITICIZED IN TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY PRESENTATION

News from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’Association

6.01.2017

Members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association have participated in a series of meetings in Israel in late December and early January, including the international conference of senior educators on ‘The Shoah and Jewish identity’ held at Yad Vashem Institute (Jerusalem). Dr Rafal Pankowski, a co-founder of ‘NEVER AGAIN’, was invited to give a presentation about the current state of antisemitism and xenophobia in Poland at the Tel Aviv University Kantor Centre for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry headed by Professor Dina Porat. The presentation, followed by a lively discussion, was held at the Tel Aviv University campus on 1 January 2017.

Although the number of Jews is today’s Poland is very small, antisemitism is present in the public discourse in various settings: from the football stadium to academia and church. Antisemitism can be seen as a paradigmatic form of prejudice, a popular expression of hostility to liberal democracy in Poland and other countries in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. The linkage between antisemitism ‎and the rapid rise of other types of xenophobia was stressed during the debate. It was illustrated by the spectacular burning of an effigy of a Chasidic Jew during an anti-refugee demonstration organized by the neo-fascist National-Radical Camp (ONR) in Wroclaw in November 2015.

Radio Maryja, the nationalist-Catholic radio station run by the Redemptorist order, has been the single most powerful disseminator of antisemitic discourse for the last 25 years, as documented in numerous reports by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, the Anti-Defamation League, the Council of Europe, and other organizations. According to the US State Department report on Global Antisemitism to the Congress in 2008, ‘Radio Maryja is one of Europe’s most blatantly anti-Semitic media venues.’

Radio Maryja’s founder, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, himself has frequently engaged in antisemitic speech on air, e.g. he routinely referred to Polish State Television as ‘TELAVision’, suggesting it was dominated by Jews. In one of his broadcasts, Rydzyk openly degraded the Jewish religion: ‘I call it ai vai shalom. It is clearly a religion of trade. It is trade, and not religion.’

Surprisingly, Rydzyk was received as a guest by the current Israeli Ambassador to Warsaw, Anna Azari, in September 2016. The publicized meeting was met with raised eyebrows among Polish civil society and an open letter of protest to the embassy was written by several highly respected figures in the Polish Jewish community, such as Konstanty Gebert, Stanislaw Krajewski, and Joanna Sobolewska-Pyz. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association expressed its disappointment, too. Nevertheless, the contacts between the Israeli Embassy and Radio Maryja continued and the embassy was represented at ceremonies organized by Father Rydzyk in his powerbase, the city of Torun. Another meeting took place on 26 November 2016 in the form of a shabbat dinner attended by Father Rydzyk, Ambassador Azari, the Director of the Zionist Organization of America Morton Kleinand, and Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Yehiel Bar (Labour Party).

- ‘I believe it is a moral and political mistake to enter into such unholy alliances with Father Rydzyk’ - said Rafal Pankowski who is an Associate Professor in Sociology at Warsaw’s Collegium Civitas. - ‘It amounts to legitimizing Radio Maryja and its xenophobic ideology.’ ‎He pointed to the fact Radio Maryja continues to promote radically antisemitic views. For example, during a religious ceremony broadcast on Radio Maryja and its associated TV network on 3 September 2016, Father Rydzyk reprimanded the faithful by shouting: ‘This is not a synagogue!’ ‎On 5 October 2016, the regular Radio Maryja commentator Stanislaw Michalkiewicz read his column on air saying: ‘The Jewish circles in Poland are tasked with providing the European Commission with as many proofs as possible that democracy and the rule of law in our unhappy country is threatened by the fascist regime.’‎ On 20 October 2016, Michalkiewicz authored another lengthy antisemitic rant, saying among others: ‘Today the mischevious Jews understood what it is about and they transformed themselves into liberals.’ On 23 November 2016, Radio Maryja aired Michalkiewicz’s weekly antisemitic broadcast in which he alleged ‘the Jewish lobby in Poland demonstrates its racial solidarity with the Ukrainian oligarchs.’ In December 2016, Michalkiewicz toured Polish churches and cultural centres in the US, spreading his antisemitic conspiracy theories.

- ‘The levels of far-right activity, hate speech and hate crime in Poland have risen rapidly since the summer of 2015’ - said Rafal Pankowski. - ‘They must be condemned and confronted, not ignored or condoned.’

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a Warsaw-based anti-racist educational and monitoring organization established in 1996.

If you would like to support ‘NEVER AGAIN’ please contact redakcja@nigdywiecej.org .

More information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ