“Donald Tusk wants Polish taxpayers to pay for the harm inflicted on Poles by the Germans. This is a scandalous proposal for two reasons – first, it shows an extraordinary weakness toward Berlin, and second, it implies that Poland is ready to take on some share of responsibility for what the Germans did,” writes Tomasz Łysiak in his column for Niezalezna.pl.
Poles listened with astonishment to the words of the Polish prime minister, who, standing next to Chancellor Merz, muttered something about compensation for the victims of World War II. With astonishment, because instead of making firm demands addressed to Germany “which is what a Polish prime minister should have done, had he truly cared about the matters of Poland and Poles”, he made idiotic declarations that if Germany did not pay “and Merz was listening and did not look like someone who would pay”, then the Polish government would do it instead. As people tend to say in such situations, one’s hands have nowhere left to fall…
It turns out that Donald Tusk wants Polish taxpayers to pay for the harm inflicted on Poles by the Germans. This is a scandalous proposal for two reasons – first, it shows an extraordinary weakness toward Berlin, and second, it means taking upon ourselves, upon Poland, some part of the responsibility for what the Germans did. And all this is happening in a reality in which the media are attempting to push Poles into the role of co-perpetrators of the Holocaust, practically as Hitler’s helpers. Such words from the Polish prime minister fit perfectly into that propagandistic machination – because if we ourselves want to pay compensation to our own citizens, do we not in some way acknowledge a kind of “co-responsibility”? For that reason alone, this statement was catastrophic.
And besides, unfortunately, it was also interpreted and explained in a very infantile way by circles sympathetic to Donald Tusk. Because these disgraceful words were supposedly meant to evoke some sense of shame or embarrassment in the German chancellor. Unfortunately, they did not. Unless Mr Merz is only now, somewhere in the quiet of some government office in Berlin, chewing over the shame and bitterness related to the fact that Germany has paid nothing to Poles for its crimes and has no intention of paying. Perhaps, tormented by guilt, Mr Merz will go to the memorial stone and light a candle of remembrance there? And then, from inside his coat, he will take out his little shame, dig a small hole under the memorial stone with a tiny shovel, and hide that little shame there? And perhaps one day future generations will find it and read how powerful, how forceful, how shockingly effective the words of the Polish prime minister were and what they supposedly caused?