Holocaust Memorial Day — House of Commons, 2020-01-23
Topic: International Affairs
Daniel Robert Kawczynski (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not have the exact figure to hand, but at least 4 million Poles, if not more, were killed. Of course, it is not just the killing of millions of Poles. As my hon. Friend will know, in 1944, when we had the temerity to try to drive the Germans out of Warsaw, Adolf Hitler insisted on the systematic destruction of Warsaw so that it would be wiped off the face of the earth. Ninety-seven per cent. of Warsaw was destroyed. When I take delegations of British parliamentarians to Poland on all-party group visits, the first place we go to is the Warsaw Uprising Museum so they can see at first hand the complete destruction, the extermination, of an entire city that took place in 1944 in Warsaw I have a thick file in my office of my correspondence with the BBC. I write to the BBC year after year with the same letter asking it not to refer, as it always does in its programmes, to "Polish death camps," and year after year I get the same reply. I tell the BBC that there is no such thing as a Polish death camp. These were concentration camps set up by the Germans and run by the Germans in German-occupied Poland. I just wish the BBC, a taxpayer-funded organisation, would understand the sensitivities of these things, rather than repeatedly referring to Polish death camps I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) earlier to ask why he had used the term "Nazi." Many hon. Members have used the term "Nazi," and I am very worried about that term. It is almost like a firewall in front of the responsibility of the German nation and the Germans. It is almost as if Nazis are some third party who descended on us temporarily. They were not Nazis—the Nazi party was a political party—most of the people who carried out these brutal attacks in Poland were German soldiers and German Gestapo officers who were not connected with the Nazi party. They were Germans. When I talk about the revisionism that is taking place today, we must remember who the perpetrators of these appalling crimes were I was invited to a German-Polish conference at the Polish presidential palace—the Belvedere palace—a few years ago. The Körber Stiftung invited me to a German-Polish conference, and I asked them why the German Government had not given war reparations to Poland. Poland is the only country that has not received any reparations resulting from the second world war, yet it was brutalised the most and had the most people—the highest percentage of citizens—eliminated and destroyed. The German Government always say to me that they will not pay reparations and they hide behind an agreement they signed with a Polish Government in 1952—they signed an agreement with a mafia-type, illegitimate Government imposed on Poland by Stalin. Bolesław Bierut was the communist stooge imposed on Poland by Stalin, who instructed Poland at that time, "You will have nothing to do with those capitalists in Germany. You will sign an agreement. You don’t want any war reparations." It is good that we are speaking here in this Chamber, but we need action for the millions of Jews and the millions of Poles who were killed, butchered and persecuted in Poland and never received any compensation from Germany whatsoever. I talk to the Polish Government often about whether or not they are going to implement a tribunal or a prosecution in an international court against Germany. They talk about it from time to time, but very little happens. I want Members to know that I am in discussions with barristers to see whether we can find Polish and Polish-Jewish survivors living here in the United Kingdom and implement a private prosecution against Germany on behalf of Polish and Polish-Jewish survivors who are British citizens A young Polish girl from Oxford University came to see me because she wanted to do a research programme in my office—an internship—and I asked whether she would help me write a paper on why Poland today should ask for war reparations. This young lady, who was 25 and desperate to work in the House of Commons, said, "No, I won’t do it." I said, "Why won’t you help me with this?" Her reply was, "No, I am not doing it. I have a German boyfriend, who would be upset if I did it, and it is ancient history. It is gone, forget it." My generation is the last generation who will do anything about this, because we sat on the laps of our beloved grandparents, and we heard about what happened to them. When we are gone, that is it, it is finished; no subsequent generation will want to stir this thing up again. But what message does this send to the hundreds of thousands of people of Polish and Polish-Jewish origin still living in this country who are now British citizens? What message is sent to them by saying, "No, this is too complicated, it is too long ago. We are not interested in the fact that the Germans did not pay war compensation to you. We are going to move on." No, as long as I am a Member of Parliament, I will continue my fight and struggle to make sure that the Germans account for the brutality that they implemented against Poland.