On June 13, the European Commission filed a lawsuit against Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, accusing them of violating European Union law by refusing to admit refugees. The next day, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło gave a speech at the site of the Auschwitz death camp to mark the 77th anniversary of the first deportation of Polish prisoners there. “In today’s turbulent times,” she said, Auschwitz is a reminder of “how important it is for a country to do everything possible to protect the safety and the lives of its citizens.”
One wonders what Szydło was talking about, and from whom she wants to protect Poles. Her remarks seemed to compare today’s Poles to the Holocaust’s Jewish victims, and today’s refugees to the Nazis. In response, European Council President Donald Tusk, who previously held Szydło’s current post, lamented that, “A Polish prime minister should never utter such words in such a place.” [...]
In the United States, the decision to turn away ships bearing Jewish refugees just before the start of World War II has become a source of national shame. Just when Jews were being murdered in Europe, the US experienced an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism. Over the course of the war, the US admitted just 21,000 Jewish refugees – a mere 10% of the maximum number allowed by law. Worse still, many Americans favored a complete ban on all refugees; and, according to opinion polls from 1938-1945, 35-40% of Americans would have supported legislation directed against Jews in particular.
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