Initially, Polish society welcomed the victory of Israel, a state whose founders and settlers included many Jews from Poland. A Polish saying at the time, "Our Jews beat Russia's Arabs" reflected the pro-Israeli sentiment, as well as hostility toward the Soviet Union, which controlled Poland's own communist regime. The anti-Semitic campaign intensified in March 1968 in reaction to student protests crushed by the security forces. The eventual result was the mass departure of 13,000 Polish Jews, among them Holocaust survivors, only 23 years after the end of World War II. The exhibition ends with quotes of contemporary hate speech, some of it targeting refugees, which could be easily mistaken for the language used in 1968.

Source: ABC News March 09, 2018 07:24 UTC