Introduction

To begin with, there are contradictory views on the issue of anti-Semitism: one of the major views perceives Poles as those who saved Jews and put their lives at risk (Bartoszewski 1967) but there are also opinions that Poles collaborated with Germans in the extermination (Gross 2008). This debate is very much alive even now years after the tragic events (Błoński 2008).

In order to understand the nature of Polish prejudices against Jews, it is vital to stress the two different meanings of the term “anti-Semitism in Poland”; first, how people from abroad define Polish anti-Semitism and second, what Poles think of themselves in relation to anti-Semitism.

People from Western countries often display biased knowledge on the situation of Poles in the occupied Poland and the Second World War history. They rely on the information from the media which is often misleading, if not harmful for Poland (e.g. writing about “Polish concentration camps”). That is why many people perceive Poland as a place where extermination of Jews took place. Moreover, many people in the West think that Poles often helped Germans with exterminating Jews. Common is the belief that the Polish during the Second World War did not suffer much. Another instance of promoting the myth of Poles helping Germans in the Holocaust is the film Shtetl shown on Public Television in the United States.