Polish prosecutors have launched an investigation into far-right leader Grzegorz Braun after he declared the gas chambers at Auschwitz to be “fake” and said it is a “fact” that Jews have committed ritual slaughter of Christians. Denial of Nazi crimes is an offence in Poland that carries a jail sentence of up to three years.
Braun, who finished fourth in the recent presidential elections with 6.3% of the vote, made his remarks during an interview today with radio station WNET. The veteran far-right politician, who is a member of the European Parliament, has a long history of hateful and conspiratorial rhetoric regarding Jews and other minorities.
During the interview, Braun referred to what he claimed are the “lies of the Talmud, the Haggadah [two Jewish religious texts], and the Holocaust”. He said that Jewish organisations “condemn those who tell the truth that ritual murder is a fact and Auschwitz with its gas chambers is a lie”.
A longstanding antisemitic canard is that Jews murder Christians, in particular children, and use their blood for religious rituals. Meanwhile, many modern antisemites deny the fact that gas chambers were used at Auschwitz and other German-Nazi camps to murder Jews during the Holocaust.
After the interviewer contested Braun’s remarks, he reiterated them, saying that the Auschwitz Museum provides a “pseudo-historical account” about what happened at the camp and blocks research into the gas chambers. He also cited a book by an Israeli historian that he says proves Jews carried out ritual murder.
That led the interviewer to immediately cut short the broadcast, saying that there “are limits to political cynicism and sensationalism when it comes to several million victims and their memory”.
Subsequently, Anna-Maria Żukowska, head of the parliamentary caucus of The Left (Lewica), one of the groups that make up Poland’s ruling coalition, announced that she was filing a complaint to prosecutors regarding Braun’s remarks.
She accused him of violating article 55 of Poland’s law on the Institute of National Remembrance, which criminalises public denial of Nazi and communist crimes. Those found guilty can be punished by up to three years in prison.
Late on Thursday afternoon, the district prosecutor’s office in Warsaw announced that it had initiated an investigation into whether Braun had committed the offence of denying Nazi crimes.
Meanwhile, Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz Museum, which is a Polish state institution, issued a statement condemning Braun’s “scandalous” comments, which he said were not only a violation of the law but also “an insult to the memory of the victims of the camp”.
“Grzegorz Braun’s words are not a ‘political provocation’, but a conscious lie and an act of ideological, antisemitic hatred,” said Cywiński. “They cannot remain without a decisive response from the state and all decent people – for whom the memory of Auschwitz is of particular importance.”
The museum director noted that, while it was primarily Jews who were victims of the gas chambers of Auschwitz, ethnic Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and Roma were also murdered in them.
At least 1.3 million prisoners were transported to Auschwitz during the war, with at least 1.1 million of them killed at the camp. Around one million of those victims were Jews, most of whom were murdered in gas chambers immediately after their arrival. The second largest group of victims were ethnic Poles.
Cywiński said that the museum would itself file a notification to prosecutors regarding Braun’s remarks. He also appealed to Polish media to stop giving space to Braun, who “has repeatedly shown that he cannot function in the public space without vandalism, lies, hate speech and racism”.
Last week, Braun was presented by prosecutors with seven sets of charges relating to four incidents, including his attack on a Jewish religious celebration in parliament two years ago.
He is also being investigated over a series of incidents during the recent presidential election campaign, including when he vandalised an LGBT+ exhibition, made antisemitic remarks during a televised debate, and removed a Ukrainian flag from a public building.
He also appealed to Polish media to stop giving space to Braun, who “has repeatedly shown that he cannot function in the public space without vandalism, lies, hate speech and racism”.
we could all take a leaf of this advice, fascist says fascist shit, shock horror. I’m so tired of people in ‘my community’ inadvertantly promoting fascists. It’s exactly what fascists want.
“We have liberated Europe from fascism, but they will never forgive us for it” (G. K. Zhukov)
Unlimited Stalin on Poland.
The… lies of the Haggadah? The book so benign I can get copies published by ShopRite? Oh no, he’s going to out the dark truth that Pesach was never meant to come with a 4 drink minimum and the secret to singing Chad Gadyah in a round while plastered! What’s next? Will he expose the ancient Jewish secret to a good brisket is actually Dr. Pepper?
Edit: Obviously this dude is a dangerous Neo-Nazi and the Earth shouldn’t suffer him breathing it’s precious oxygen, but we gotta laugh or else we’ll cry, right?
Tell me more about this Dr. Pepper brisket…
Jewish brisket is different from Texas smoked brisket. First of all, it’s braised rather than smoked. It’s cooked with carrots, celery and onions in a mixture of crushed tomatoes and wine and seasoned relatively simply with salt, garlic, pepper, thyme and bay leaves. While I think the smoked kinds are generally better sliced thin on a sandwich, a braised Jewish brisket is such a core memory of the Passover Sedar (the ceremonial meal described in the Haggadah) that I savor it in its own way. I’ve made em for Rosh Hashanah as well. All that’s to say, your milage may vary and so you might not find it to your liking.
BUT, the method is fairly simple.
Season a whole brisket with salt and pepper, brown it in a large roasting pan. Once browned, remove it and add in your aromatics (onion, carrot, garlic, celery, whatever you want) and brown those slightly too. Deglaze with wine, add in Dr. Pepper or cola, add in tomatoes and ketchup (use less if using soda). Add the brisket back in, your herbs, then roast low and slow at around 275°F to 300°F for 3 to 4 hours, should be fork tender. Once it’s cooked, pull it out, let it rest for like a half hour, slice it thin, put it back in the roasting pan with the juices, baste it, cover it, let it sit somewhere warm for another half hour while it soaks up the braising liquid.
Ideally you want a brisket with the deckle, but if you got a first cut brisket, don’t trim the fat, you wanna render that out during the cook. You can skim it off the resulting braising liquid after the cook if you’d like.
Also the recipe isn’t set in stone. Play with it! It’s supposed to be a bit sweet, so I’ve thrown in figs and apricots, seasoned the top of sumac and pomegranate, za’atar isn’t unwelcome here, if atypical.
Quick question about rendering the fat. In the point of the brisket specifically, there is a middle layer of fat that is very hard to render due to its location. What is the best solution for rendering that out, especially when cooking at such a high temperature and such a low amount of time compared to smoked brisket?
I haven’t had an issue with this layer so I’m not sure what to tell you. It gets soft and juicy in the process, but you can keep cooking it if you want it more thoroughly rendered. Just be mindful that there’s enough braising liquid in the pan.
I don’t agree with Texas about much at all, but a good brisket just needs salt, pepper, smoke, a low cooking temp and patience.
That’s how I usually make them.
He should put his money where his mouth is and eat a can of zyk in his closet
Seems fully on-brand for someone related to Eva Braun. 🤷🏼♂️
