Denial at Yad Vashem

By TJ Reporter - Thursday 16th August 2007

A government-appointed teacher-trainer in Poland has been accused of denying the Holocaust and making offensive comments while at a Yad Vashem workshop in Jerusalem.

Tadeusz Trzaskowski, a representative of the National In-Service Teacher Training Centre (CODN) in Poland, appointed by the Ministry of Education, allegedly made the comments during a series of workshops organised by the International School of Studies on the Holocaust last week.

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A Warsaw teacher who also attended the workshops said: “The CODN representative was the most vociferous. He asked how it was known that so many people had died during the Holocaust and said that he had information that the death toll had been exaggerated.

Despite several requests, he allegedly refused to take off his cowboy hat and wear a yarmulke, and, when he saw a rabbi, he reportedly shouted: “That’s the first time I have seen a rabbi with blue eyes!”

A spokesperson for the CODN said he did not see anything wrong with the comments.

Meanwhile, Polish authorities are analysing tapes following complaints that a senior priest accused the country of being in the pockets of the Jewish lobby.
A tape, leaked to Polish magazine Wprost, allegedly contains a lecture from Father Tadeus Rydzyk, lambasting the country’s leaders for giving Jews compensation for property seized during the war.

Rydzyk, owner Radio Maryja, one of the country’s biggest stations, was recorded as saying “You know what this is about: Poland giving [the Jews] $65 billion (£32 billion). They will come to you and say, ‘Give me your coat! Take off your trousers! Give me your shoes!”

He claims the comments were manipulated.

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