Chief Rabbi of Poland: Katz offended Polish Jews with Holocaust comment

Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich released an official letter protesting the Israeli Minister's statement that 'Poles imbibe antisemitism from their mothers' milk.'

By HAGAY HACOHEN
Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich talks with Warsaw bishop Kazimierz Nycz (L) as he sits near Israel Ambassador to Poland David Peleg during the laying of the cornerstone for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw June 26, 2007. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich talks with Warsaw bishop Kazimierz Nycz (L) as he sits near Israel Ambassador to Poland David Peleg during the laying of the cornerstone for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw June 26, 2007.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich released an official letter Monday slamming Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz for saying that, "Poles suckle antisemitism from their mothers' milk."
Katz said the statement on Tuesday on i24 News channel when he discussed the Warsaw conference and the diplomatic fallout from Netanyahu's comments on Poles and the Holocaust. 
Referring to the words of former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir who said in 1989 [of the Poles who murdered his father]: "the Poles suckle antisemitism from their mothers' milk," Katz added that "No one will tell us how to remember the fallen."

Calling the original Shamir statement "unjust" even in the standards of 1989, Schudrich said that to repeat them in 2019 is "even more unjust today."

Noting that Poland under occupation did not collaborate with the Germans as, for example, France, the Netherlands and Denmark, he goes on to point out that in the group of those recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for aiding Jews in WW2 Poles are the largest group and that to repeat the statement "offends the righteous." 
"It also offends those who today want to see in them [the Righteous] the true representation of Polish society," he said, "it also offends us Polish Jews who are a part of that society."
The letter is co-signed by Head of the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland Monika Krawczyk.
The letter was Tweeted by Polish ambassador in Israel Marel Magierowski.