Racism in Poland

**Racism in Poland** has been a subject of research, especially in the field of modern history, for the past three decades. Ethnic minorities had formed a sizeable proportion of Poland's population ‒ from the early Polish state to the Second Polish Republic ‒ until the Holocaust happened. After World War II, Polish government statistics found that 94% of the population identified as Polish.

## Recent trend
As per the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), hate crimes recorded by the Police of Poland dropped between 2018 and 2020, but rose steadily until 2022, reaching a level higher than 2018 (table below). Of the 440 prosecuted hate crimes, 268 (61%) were racist and xenophobic hate crimes, seconded by 87 (20%) antisemitic hate crimes, while only 6% were allegedly anti-Muslim hate crimes (25).

## Jews
### Middle Ages
King Casimir III the Great brought Jews to Poland during the Black Death when Jewish communities were persecuted across Europe. During the 15th century, radical Catholics in Kraków incited pogroms in 1469. In 1485, Jewish elders were forced to stop trading in Kraków. After the 1494 Kraków fire, pogroms happened again. King John I Albert forced the Jews to move to Kazimierz. From 1527, Jews were no longer admitted into the city walls of Warsaw.

### 20th century
#### Interwar period
 of 1919–1921.]]

In the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939), the government restricted Jews from civil service and licence acquisition. From the 1930s, the restrictions extended to college admission and almost all professions. In 1921‒22, 25% of college students were Jewish and the proportion fell to 8% by 1939, but the far-right *Endecja* (National Democracy) party continued organizing boycotts of Jews.

After Polish Prime Minister Józef Piłsudski's death in 1935, the *Endecja* doubled down by vowing to "remove Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland". The government relented and organized the *Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego* (OZON, English: Camp of National Unity) to take over the Polish parliament in 1938. Laws against Jews were subsequently drafted. American historian Timothy Snyder claimed that the pre-1939 Polish leadership

 to the nation".]]

#### World War II
By the start of WWII, 12% of Polish population were Jewish, who were all but eliminated in the Holocaust. 

#### Post-war period
Instances of post-war antisemitic violence, including the Kraków pogrom on August 11, 1945 and Kielce pogrom on July 4, 1946, also happened, which are claimed to have been caused by lawlessness and the *Żydokomuna* ("Jewish communism") myth believed by some Poles. Polish anthropologist Joanna Tokarska-Bakir estimated that 50 pogroms happened in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine between 1944 and 1948.

Dozens of anti-Jewish incidents happened in the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands to the extent that Holocaust survivors were advised not to speak Yiddish in public.

Some Holocaust survivors also hesitated to return to their original homes over reports of pogroms. The state-sponsored antisemitic campaigns under the Soviet Union and its puppet regimes in Soviet-occupied Eastern European states also made it harder for perpetrators of antisemitic violence to be put on trial. Freda Dymbort, another survivor, said:

### 21st century
 depicting a Star of David hanging from gallows, c. 2012.]]

In 2022, the American civil rights group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted a global survey on antisemitism, which found 35% of Poland's people to have "harbour[ed] antisemitic attitudes", the second highest among the 10 European states surveyed, despite the percentage significantly lower than the previous survey. 

Whereas, the Czulent Jewish Association, a Polish Jewish group, reported in 2023 that 488 antisemitic incidents had been recorded in 2022, 86% of which involved online harassment and insults. It noted that "Jew" was often used to smear a perceived enemy as "disloyal, an outsider and unpatriotic." Comments peddling antisemitic tropes and blaming all Jews for the Gaza War are also common in Reddit's subreddit r/Poland (1.1M subscribers).

In June 2023, Polish-Canadian historian Jan Grabowski held a seminar on Poland's history of antisemitism in Warsaw. Far-right MP Grzegorz Braun forced its cancellation by smashing Grabowski's microphone. During the 2023 Hanukkah, the same MP put out a menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament. He was expelled by the parliament and charged with hate crimes. while being praised by users in Reddit's subreddit r/Poland who claimed to be "only anti-Israel". The subreddit is noted for antisemitism.

On 1 May 2024, the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw was hit with three firebombs by a 16-year old. Poland's President Andrzej Duda condemned the attack.

## Roma
In June 1991, a riot broke out in the Polish town Mława after a Romani teenager drove into three Poles in a crosswalk, killing one Polish man and permanently injuring another, before fleeing the scene. A mob attacked wealthy Romani settlements in the town. Both the Mława police chief and University of Warsaw sociology researchers claimed the riot to have been caused by class envy, while the town's mayor and townsfolk believed it to have been racially motivated. It is claimed that the riot's news coverage comprised anti-Roma stereotypes.

## Africans
The most common word in Polish for a Black person is *Murzyn*, often deemed neutral in the past but a slur nowadays.

## Footnotes
## References