A petition calling on a Polish ‘book fair’ to remove a controversial historian with links to the extreme-right has gained hundreds of signatures from Poles in Britain.

The petition, created by Ewa Matusiak, argues: “We, the Polish immigrants, would kindly ask the Mayor to stop upcoming Hate Preachers’ conference, called misleadingly ‘Family Book Fair’.”

The event is scheduled to take place in Manchester on June 16th.

The petition further argues that it is important to stop ‘extremists’ like Leszek Zebrowski from speaking.

Faith Matters has previously revealed how Mr Zebrowski had posed with the flag of the neo-fascist group The Radical Camp (ONR) when on a speaking tour in Ireland.

Other Polish groups based in the UK have criticised the event.

The petition is still gaining traction and has now gained almost 600 signatures.

Faith Matters will pass the petition and our concerns to Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester.

We are encouraged by the continued efforts of Poles in Britain and elsewhere who continue to speak out against extremism, racism, and hatred in their community, and helping to expose and marginalise those who seek to alloy themselves in the mainstream of Polish communal life in Britain.

Faith Matters has been at the vanguard of writing about entryism by far right groups from Poland, who are seeking to access members of settled Polish communities in the United Kingdom. The aim is pretty simple. With over 700,000 settled members of Polish communities in the country, they make an accessible and ready pool of potential volunteers, supporters and donours to the extreme causes of such groups. It really is as simple as that.

We have written extensively about groups like Ogniwo, Leszek Żebrowski, Grom Legion, Janus Korwin-Mikke (and his group – Liberty), and the neo-fascist ONR. The comments and actions of such groups and individuals run contrary to the pluralism and the tolerant values that are part and parcel of our country.

Today, we can exclusively reveal that in January 2017, many of these groups signed a letter of alliance or partnership which is chilling. It was signed in Hammersmith in London and includes neo-fascist groups, ONR (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny) and Ogniwo.

The document reads:

“We, the undersigned, the representatives of patriotic and libertarian circles, bearing in mind the greater good of our Fatherland – Poland, and the next generations of Polish men and women, declare the will to cooperate and the will of mutual pursuit of our common goals.”

It is then followed by a quote by a Polish nationalist leader from the 1930s, Roman Dmowski:

“We are different, we come from different parts of Poland, we have different interests but we are united in a common goal. This goal is the Fatherland, for which we want to live and work.”

It is ironic that the agreement was signed in London, when the groups want to live and work for the ‘Fatherland’ – Poland. A picture of the signatories and list of groups is highlighted below. 

This is clearly a worrying development, given some of the groups involved and the ideology of them. It also further adds to our argument that resilience, or rather the lack of it within Polish communities, means that many of these groups can conduct entryism for influence, pretty easily.

List of Groups Who Signed

Ogniwo

Patriae Fidelis

Independent Poland

Fides Et Libertas

ONR

Liberty (Janusz Korwin-Mikke’s party)

Commitee for the Defense of Poland

Patriots of the Republic

Against the Tide

The Patriots

Polish Patriots Association

An event for Polish families in Stafford on May 12 will feature a lecture by a controversial historian who has links to the neo-fascist National Radical Camp (ONR) group in Poland, a Faith Matters investigation has revealed.

The speaker, Leszek Żebrowski, was labelled an antisemite in a 2016 article published by Gazeta Wyborcza.

The event, hosted by the White Eagle Club, promises bouncy castles, a barbeque, and face painting, will also see an appearance from the controversial GROM Legion group.

A Facebook event page has already attracted interested.

The event poster also sees sponsorship from the Ogniwo (The Link) which promotes itself as a self-styled ‘patriotic group’ but whose membership attracts neo-Nazis.

Rafal Pankowski, an academic who works for the Polish anti-hate charity Never Again, noted that Żebrowski continues to deny Polish involvement in the anti-Jewish pogroms in Jedwabne and Kielce.

Żebrowski appeared in a photograph of the Irish chapter of the ONR following a brief speaking tour in May last year which included events in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick.

He appeared in an ONR promotional video concerning the March 1 march to commemorate the ‘cursed soldiers’ and by organising such rallies, allows the extreme right to posit themselves as torch-bearers for this form of Polish patriotism, according to the historian Rafał Wnuk. Żebrowski was also photographed at an ONR rally last year. 

Commemorations for this event in Slough, London in February 2017, included an event where the extremist former priest, Jacek Międlar, infamous for his antisemitic and anti-Muslim views, was listed alongside Żebrowski as guest speakers. Międlar has twice failed to enter the UK to attend two Britain First rallies in February and June and remains banned due to his extreme views.

A video of the Slough event, uploaded by Piotr Szlachtowicz to YouTube, confirms Żebrowski’s presence, at the timestamp of 7:21.

The views of Szlachtowicz do also appear in the Faith Matters report.

Razem Londyn, the London branch of the left-wing Polish political party Razem (Together), condemned the potential presence of Żebrowski and Międlar in Slough in a Facebook post on February 22, 2017.

Leszek Żebrowski shared a flyer for the same commemorative event in Slough a year earlier.

On Facebook, Żebrowski promotes the Holocaust revisionism of Jan Peczkis, who writes long screeds on Amazon and other obscure blogs. In one example Peczkis  wrote: “All attention is focused on the suffering of Jews and almost completely ignores crimes committed on the Slavic nations like Poles, treating them as second-class victims.”

Nor does this view exist in insolation, our report into contemporary and historical forms of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred and racism in Poland highlights how parts of the Polish right attempt to use historiography to reshape a collective memory which favours and exceptionalities Polish suffering collectively under Nazism. This form of revisionism also serves to erase discussions about how some Poles were complicit in antisemitism and antisemitic violence before, during, and after the Second World War.

This view has found ground in more mainstream circles, including in the works of Richard Lukas, who is not without controversy and has been accused by one eminent Holocaust scholar of publishing a book which ‘borders’ on antisemitism.

Peczkis has made various antisemitic comments in his Amazon reviews, including “THE USA AND EUROPEAN UNION AS TOOLS FOR PROMOTING JEWISH INTERESTS AT POLAND’S EXPENSE.” It is, therefore, no surprise to see Żebrowski promoting such views to his large Facebook audience.