Anti-Semitism Rears Its Ugly Head in Europe Again

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/polish-marchers-blame-jews-for-the-covid-pandemic

That's a headline that ought to get your attention. 

The ignorance that has been built into political perspectives related to COVID-19 is appalling.  Yeah, it seems very cliche to say that, but what we have witnessed here in the United States when it comes to the use of conspiracy theories, denial, obfuscation, deliberate lies and misinformation for conservative political purposes has been far more than just merely appalling.  It has been unnecessarily deadly.  It has exposed a level of racism and ethnic divisiveness that, frankly, I did not believe existed among Americans.  

Should we be surprised that it also surfaces in Europe?  In Poland? 

Granted, this is a small group of people.  It's hard for me to get a read on Polish politics.  Oppression has a way of uniting people politically and socially in ways that nothing else really does.  Poland has had more than its fair share of oppression, under the domination of the larger, more dominant European powers, disappearing from the map under the rule of the Austrian empire until the Treaty of Versailles after World War 1, then crushed by the Nazis first, then the Communists in the Soviet Bloc.  The democracy that emerged has been conservative in many ways because of the dominance of the Catholic Church in Poland, which thrived under persecution, but liberal in many ways because it rejected Fascism.  

Anti-Semitism was, of course, a major force in Poland for most of its history.  Circumstances led to Poland being home to Europe's largest and most well-developed Jewish community, because of the anarchic nature of the country's history, making deals with local aristocrats, princes and principalities to survive, providing business services to thrive.  Though present in large numbers everywhere in Poland, their communities were separate and isolated from the Poles, many of whom resented their "prosperity" and sense of community.  When the Nazis came in, their ability to round up and systematically wipe out the Jewish communities was helped along significantly by the local population.  

The Holocaust was centered in Poland, and it was more deadly there than anywhere else.  The Nazi death camps, designed specifically to murder people and burn the evidence, were all in Poland, near the cities and towns from which the Jews were brought to them after having their property stolen.  More than 3 million Polish Jews died in the extermination camps or in places where they were shot and dumped into mass graves all across Poland.  As the survivors returned to Poland from the camps and prisons where they had been sent, they faced yet another wave of Anti-Semitic persecution from their Polish neighbors. 

This was just a small group of people in a small demonstration.  The fact of the matter is that a vast majority of people in most countries around the world approve of whatever measures their government must take in order to deal with a viral pandemic that continues to spread and have the potential to continue to disrupt the routines of life.  So the fact that a small group of people venting their frustrations over COVID-19 restrictions is no big deal.  But the familiar sound of those who are venting their frustrations by blaming Jews is disturbing enough to warrant attention and generate whatever corrective action is necessary, especially in Poland.