A Polish member of parliament (MP) lauded pogroms against Jews in a Feb. 27 interview on a Polish television network, asserting that the pogroms made Jews powerful through natural selection.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that Janusz Korwin-Mikke, the leader of the right-wing Liberty Party, said that the benefit of the coronavirus epidemic is that natural selection will benefit mankind. He cited Jews as an example.
“The most gifted survived,” he said. “This is a warning to anti-Semites: That is why Jews are powerful, because they had pogroms. There are even theories that rabbis deliberately provoke pogroms precisely so that Jews survive and then there is natural selection.”
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt condemned Korwin-Mikke’s remarks as anti-Semitic.
“Pogroms devastated Jewish communities in Europe & to say that they were good for Jews is beyond offensive,” he tweeted.
Polish far-right leader @JkmMikke once again spews vile antisemitism, this time claiming that pogroms were good for Jews for “natural selection.”
Pogroms devastated Jewish communities in Europe & to say that they were good for Jews is beyond offensive. https://t.co/kjDYHA1uyV
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) March 4, 2020
The Stop Antisemitism.org watchdog tweeted, “Yes this is 2020.”
Far right wing Polish Minister makes the outrageous claim the #Jewish pogroms are good for public health reasons.
Yes this is 2020. https://t.co/UpOL1Dv7lb
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 3, 2020
According to The Jerusalem Post, Korwin-Mikke alleged in 2013 that Adolf Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust and alleged in 2019 that Jews are a part of the Freemasons. Additionally, in 2015, Korwin-Mikke was suspended from the European Parliament for 10 days after giving a Nazi salute while stating Nazi Germany’s motto. He gave the Nazi salute in response to European Union (EU) efforts to implement a standardized ticketing process when traveling across the borders of EU countries.
