Poland

Not everybody sees Poland's recent acts regarding the Holocaust as mere pushback against German efforts to deflect the blame onto others.

It is well known and beyond doubt that in Poland, Ukraine, and elsewhere in Nazi-conquered Eastern Europe, anti-Semitism rife for centuries led to widespread, though of course far from universal, and enthusiastic popular collaboration with the Nazi genocide of the Jews.

But those recent acts reject and even criminalize accusations that the Polish state itself collaborated in the Shoah.

And having been destroyed by the Nazis in September, 1939, it truly did not.

However, they also criminalize accusations against "the Polish nation."

And that could perhaps be read by a prosecutor or a court as criminalizing even the truth that collaboration with the Nazi assault on the Jews was widespread among Poles - and sympathy for it even more popular.

Poland Digs Itself a Memory Hole

But the broader target of this piece is Poland's descent into nationalist, racist authoritarianism.

About that it is very good.

And about links with The Duce, himself, and our American white nationalism, Nativism, and approval of Bozo's thuggish authoritarianism.

Poland’s Nationalism Threatens Europe’s Values, and Cohesion

The EU has already bitten off more than it can chew, allowing membership to Eastern European states far more sympathetic to nationalist, anti-immigrant, and anti-liberal authoritarianism than to the somewhat post-nationalist, multiculturalist and secular order, built by the West, that underpins and finds expression in the legal order of the EU.

Imagine if it surrendered to Erdogan's demands and let Turkey join!

Awaken, Poland, Before It’s Too Late

A good piece by Roger Cohen.