Racism in Poland has been a subject of extensive studies. Ethnic minorities historically made up a substantial proportion of Poland's population, from the founding of the Polish state through the Second Polish Republic, than they did after World War II when government statistics showed that at least 94% of the population self-reported as ethnic Poles.Główny Urząd Statystyczny, Wyniki Narodowego Spisu Powszechnego Ludności i Mieszkań 2011 , Warszawa 2012, pp. 105-106Polish population census 2002 nationalities tables 1 or 2
Racism towards ethnic minorities As per the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), hate crimes recorded by the Police of Poland dropped between 2018 and 2020, but rose steadily until 2022, reaching a level higher than 2018 (table below). Of the 440 prosecuted hate crimes, 268 (61%) were racist and xenophobic hate crimes, seconded by 87 (20%) antisemitic hate crimes, while only 6% were "anti-Muslim" hate crimes (25).
Year Hate crimes recorded by police Prosecuted Sentenced 2022 1,180 440 312 2021 997 466 339 2020 826 374 266 2019 972 432 597 2018 1,117 397 315
Jews
King Casimir III the Great brought Jews to Poland during the Black Death when Jewish communities were persecuted and expelled from several European kingdoms. With better living conditions, 80% of world Jewry lived in Poland by the mid-16th century."Poland – Virtual Jewish History Tour" at Jewish Virtual Library via Internet Archive."Polish Jews History", at PolishJews.org via Internet Archive. During the 15th century in the royal capital of Kraków, extremist clergymen advocated violence against the Jews, who gradually lost their positions. In 1469, Jews were expelled from their old settlement and forced to move to Spiglarska Street. In 1485, Jewish elders were forced to renounce trade in Kraków, leading many Jews to leave for Kazimierz which did not fall under the restrictions due to its status as a royal town. Following the 1494 fire in Kraków, a wave of anti-Jewish attacks occurred. King John I Albert forced the remaining Jews of Kraków to move to Kazimierz.The Torah Ark in Renaissance Poland: A Jewish Revival of Classical Antiquity, Ilia M. Rodov, Brill, pages 2-6 Starting in 1527, Jews were no longer admitted into the city walls of Warsaw (generally speaking, temporary stays were possible in the royal palace). Only the Praga suburb was open to them.
The Council of Four Lands created in 1581 was a Jewish diet presided over by community elders from each major part of Poland, while another governing body was established in Lithuania in 1623. Jewish communities were usually protected by the szlachta (nobles) in exchange for managing the nobles' domains. In Congress Poland, Jews gained civic rights with the ukase (edict) of 5 June 1862, two years before serfdom was abolished. 35 years later, the 1.4 million Polish Jews represented 14% of whom within the Russian-administered partition, which included Warsaw and Łódź.
In the Second Polish Republic, the Polish government excluded Jews from receiving government bank credits, from public sector employment (in 1931, only 599 of 87,640 public servants were Jewish—in the fields of telephony, railroads, administration and justice), and from obtaining business licenses in government-controlled spheres of the economy. From the 1930s, limits were placed on Jewish enrollment in universities, admission to the medical and legal professions, on Jewish shops, Jewish export firms, Shechita, membership in business associations etc. 25% of students were Jews in 1921–1922, the proportion had dropped to 8% by 1939, while the far-right National Democracy (Endecja) party organized anti-Jewish boycotts.
Following the death of Poland's prime minister Józef Piłsudski in 1935, the Endecja intensified its efforts and declared in 1937 that its "main aim and duty must be to remove the Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland", which lead to violence in a few cases (pogroms in smaller towns). In response, the government organized the Camp of National Unity (OZON) to take over the Polish parliament in 1938, which went on to draft anti-Jewish legislations similar to those in Nazi Germany, Hungary, Romania etc. The OZON advocated the mass emigration of Jews from Poland, boycotts of Jews, numerus clausus and further restrictions on Jewish rights. According to Timothy Snyder, in the years leading up to World War II the Polish leadership
During WWII, notable antisemitic incidents in Poland included the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom under brutal Nazi occupation and brief postwar anti-Jewish violence, attributed by historians to lawlessness and anti-communist resistance against the Soviet occupation with which the Żydokomuna (Jewish communism) label was associated.
Another major event took place during the 1968 Polish political crisis.
Jews in Poland made up 10% of the country's population in 1939, who were all but eradicated in the Holocaust.; also in In the Polish census of 2011, merely 7,353 people declared either their primary or secondary ethnicity as Jewish. In 2017, the University of Warsaw's Center for Research on Prejudice found an increase in antisemitic views in Poland, possibly due to growing anti-migrant sentiment and alleged Islamophobia in Poland. Later that year, the European Jewish Congress accused the Polish government of "normalizing" the phenomenon in the country.
In 2022, the American civil rights group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted a global survey on antisemitism. It found that 35% of Poland's people "harbour[ed] antisemitic attitudes", the second highest among the 10 European countries surveyed. Notably, the percentage was significantly lower than the previous ADL survey. Whereas, the Czulent Jewish Association, a Polish Jewish group, reported in 2023 that 488 antisemitic incidents had been recorded in 2022, 86% of which involved online harassment and insults. It noted that "Jew" was often used to smear a perceived enemy as "disloyal, an outsider and unpatriotic."
Comments peddling antisemitic tropes and blaming all Jews for the Gaza war are also reportedly common in Reddit's subreddit r/Poland, subject to no apparent administrative interventions despite blatant violations.Examples:
In June 2023, Polish-Canadian historian Jan Grabowski held a seminar on Poland's history of antisemitism in Warsaw. Far-right MP Grzegorz Braun and his backers forced its cancellation by smashing Grabowski's microphone.
During the 2023 Hanukkah, the same MP put out a menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament. He was expelled by the parliament and charged with hate crimes. His behavior caused a global uproar,
while being praised by a pro-Palestinian multitude in Reddit's subreddit r/Poland. Nevertheless, Grzegorz Braun was elected to the European Parliament in June 2024.
On 1 May 2024, the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw was hit with three firebombs by a 16-year old. Poland's President Andrzej Duda condemned the firebombing, "There is no place for antisemitism in Poland! There is no place for hatred in Poland!" It happened amid a global spike in antisemitic hate crimes from the Gaza War.
Roma
In June 1991, the Mława riot, a series of violent incidents against Polska Roma, broke out after a Romani teenager drove into three ethnic Poles in a crosswalk, killing one Polish man and permanently injuring another, before fleeing the scene of the accident. After the accident, a rioting mob attacked wealthy Romani settlements in the Polish town of Mława. Both the Mława police chief and University of Warsaw sociology researchers said that the pogrom was primarily due to class envy (some Romani have grown wealthy in the gold and automobile trades). At the time, the mayor of the town, as well as the Romani involved and other residents, said the incident was primarily racially motivated.
During coverage of the riot, an emerging change in stereotypes about Roma in Poland was identified. Roma were no longer poor, dirty, or cheerful, and did not beg or pretend to be lowly anymore. Instead, they were seen as owning high-end cars, living in fancy mansions, flaunting their wealth while bragging that local authorities and police are on their payroll, leaving them unafraid of anyone. At the same time, they were seen as swindlers, thieves, hustlers, and military service dodgers who refused to hold down legal, decent jobs.Anna Giza-Poleszczuk, Jan Poleszczuk, Raport "Cyganie i Polacy w Mławie - konflikt etniczny czy społeczny?" (Report "Romani and Poles in Mława - Ethnic or Social Conflict?") commissioned by Centre for Public Opinion Research, Warsaw, December 1992, pp. 16- 23, Sections III and IV "Cyganie w PRL-u stosunki z polską większością w Mławie" and "Lata osiemdziesiąte i dziewięćdziesiąte". Negative "metastereotypes" – or the Romas' own perceptions of stereotypes that dominant groups hold about their group – were described by the Polish Roma Society in an attempt to heighten the awareness of and dialogue around exclusionism.
Ukrainians
During the second half of the last millennium, Poland experienced significant periods when its feudal economy was dominated by serfdom. Many serfs were treated in disdainful fashion by the nobility (szlachta) and had few rights. While many serfs were ethnic, Catholic Poles, many others were Orthodox Ruthenians, later self-identifying as Ukrainians and Belarusians. Some scholars described the attitudes of the (mostly Polish) nobility towards serfs as a form of racism. In modern Poland, where Ukrainians form a significant minority of migrant workers, they are subject to occasional racism in everyday life.Mniejszość ukraińska i migranci z Ukrainy w Polsce, Związek Ukraińców w Polsce, 2019Marcin Deutschmann, Rasizm w Polsce w kontekœcie problemów migracyjnych. Próba diagnozy. STUDIA KRYTYCZNE | NR 4/2017: 71-85 | ISSN 2450-9078
Africans The most common word in Polish for a black person has traditionally been "Murzyn". It is often regarded as a neutral word to describe a person of black (Sub-Saharan African) ancestry, but nowadays many Africans in Poland consider it pejorative, with dictionaries reflecting this. Professor Marek Łaziński has said that "Murzyn" is now "archaic". Perceptions of black people have also been shaped by literature. Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel In Desert and Wilderness contains the famous character Kali, who speaks broken English and has dubious morality. In 1924, poet Julian Tuwim published a children's verse, "Murzynek Bambo" ("The little Murzyn Bambo"), which remained much-loved over the following half-century, but in the 21st century became criticised for "othering" black people. In Communist Poland, Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe was translated quite freely and targeted at children because it was seen as anti-capitalist and anti-slavery, but now is seen as reinforcing various black stereotypes.
One high-profile event with regard to blacks in Poland was the death of Maxwell Itoya in 2010, a Nigerian street vendor from a mixed marriage who was selling counterfeit goods. He was shot in the upper leg by a police officer during a street brawl that followed a screening check at a market in Warsaw, and died of a severed artery.Piotr Machajski (28 June 2013), Milion zł za zastrzelonego męża? Żona chce odszkodowania. Wyborcza.pl. The event led to a media debate regarding policing and racism. In Strzelce Opolskie, black football players from the LZS Piotrówka club were attacked in a bar by fans of opposing team Odra Opole in 2015 and two young men were arrested.TVN 24 Wrocław (7 April 2015), Pobicie czarnoskórych piłkarzy. Dwóch zatrzymanych. News byte. At least six were sentenced. In a Łódź dance club, a black student was attacked in a men's washroom.
Racism against ethnic Poles