Anti-Israel Polish artist faces backlash after comparing Israel to Nazi Germany
A controversial Polish artist and anti-Israel activist equated the Jewish state with Nazi Germany last week outside of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland, where more than one million Jewish men, women and children were murdered during the Holocaust.
Igor Dobrowolski filmed himself last week holding a sign with the message "Israel created the largest death camp in history," a thinly veiled reference to the Gaza Strip, where IDF soldiers have been dismantling the Hamas terrorist organization, which perpetrated a large-scale invasion and massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7 of last year.
"Israel is doing to the Palestinians what the Germans did to the Jews," the anti-Israel activist claimed.
Dobrowolski, who was wearing a Palestinian Authority flag in the video, said his action was a "silent protest in front of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps."
"The greatest way to honor Holocaust victims is to actively oppose such crimes today or in the future. Turning a blind eye to current genocide while visiting former concentration camps dishonors Holocaust victims," Dobrowolski stated.
The controversial activist is facing a backlash for his politicization of the Holocaust.
Inhab Hassan, a Christian Arab human rights activist, condemned Dobrowolski’s conduct in a video that accumulated some 1.6 million views.
"As a Palestinian, I am appalled," Hassan stated. "Holocaust memorials or concentration camps are not stages for political stunts. If you stand with us, do so without exploiting the memory of one of humanity's greatest tragedies. Stop using our flag and suffering to shield your antisemitism," he wrote.
The Israeli Ambassador to Poland, Yacov Livne, also condemned Dobrowolski’s stunt as “Despicable” in a post on 𝕏.
The Nazi party and their collaborators murdered around six million Jews during the Holocaust. About 90% of Poland’s large prewar Jewish population was wiped out, the overwhelming majority were civilians.
In comparison, the Hamas-run Health Ministry claimed that some 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7. However, the Health Ministry does not distinguish between Hamas terrorists and civilians when reporting casualties of the war.
In August, the Israeli military announced that it had eliminated some 17,000 terrorists since Oct. 7. In addition, Israeli forces, killed about 1,000 terrorists on Israeli soil following the invasion and massacre.
A growing number of governments and international organizations have accused the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza as the nation defends itself against Hamas. These anti-Israel charges have been rejected as false by the United States, Germany and other leading Western democracies.
In June, John Spencer, head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point rejected the “genocide” accusation against Israel, noting that the Israeli military had done more to minimize civilian casualties than any other military including, the U.S. military.
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
