WARSAW, Poland (AP) – The Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum has denounced a political spot by Poland’s ruling party that uses the theme of the German Nazi death camp to discourage participation in an upcoming anti-government march.
The state museum attacked the “instrumentalisation of the tragedy” of the 1.1 million people who were killed at the site during the Second World War, arguing it is an insult to their memory.
“It is a sad, painful and unacceptable manifestation of the moral and intellectual corruption of public debate,” the state museum said.
The 14-second video released by the Law and Justice party on Wednesday shows footage of the former death camp, including the well-known “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate and the words: “Do you really want to walk under this slogan?”
The reference is to a now-deleted tweet by journalist Tomasz Lis, who claimed that President Andrzej Duda and ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski deserved to go to jail. He posted the tweet amid a heated debate over a law passed by party lawmakers and signed by Duda that the US, the European Union and many Polish critics consider undemocratic.
“There will be a chamber for Duda and Kaczor,” the tweet said, using a nickname for Kaczynski.
He used the Polish word “komora”, which can simply be a cell or a dark chamber, but which many in Poland associate with the gas chambers used by the Germans in mass murders during the war.
Lis has since deleted the tweet and apologized.
“It is obvious that he was thinking of a cell, but he should have foreseen that people of ill will would adopt an absurd interpretation. I hope that Mr. Doubt and Mr. Kaczynski pay for his crimes against democracy, but on a human level I wish him health and long life,” said Lis. “I never wished death on anyone.”
President Duda intervened with a tweet that implied criticism of the party that supported him. “The memory of the victims of German crimes in Auschwitz is sacred and inviolable; the tragedy of millions of victims cannot be used in the political struggle; this is an undignified act,” he said.
The alleged aim of the new law is to create a commission to investigate Russian influences in Poland. But critics fear it will be used ahead of autumn elections to target opponents, particularly opposition leader Donald Tusk. They say the commission could be used by the ruling party to eliminate its opponents from public life for a decade.
The law was approved this week by Duda, with widespread criticism in Poland and from the EU and the United States.
Critics in Poland have informally dubbed him “Lex Tusk” and his departure has energized the political opposition. Tusk plans to lead a large anti-government march on Sunday in Warsaw, the capital.
The march is to be held on the 34th anniversary of Poland’s first partially free elections after decades of communism, on June 4, 1989.
