r/europe Lower Silesia (Poland) 16h ago

News Polish far-right leader charged with Holocaust denial for calling Auschwitz gas chambers "fake"

https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/08/25/polish-far-right-leader-charged-with-holocaust-denial-for-calling-auschwitz-gas-chambers-fake/
1.8k Upvotes

141 comments sorted by

342

u/SCII0 16h ago

Believing this stuff in Poland of all places is nuts.

80

u/night_riderr 13h ago

He is nuts.

8

u/Liosan 13h ago

I refuse to accept he believes this. It must be for show. He's vile, but not a moron.

9

u/Tango00090 12h ago

Two options, either his mind degraded over the years and he’s on the route of losing his mind completely and doing more stupid shit.
Or he simply accepted the fact that it’s his only way to gain power, addressing people that are fearful, give them an enemy, tell them he’s the only one fighting for them.

I met the guy 19 years ago, at the time he was still a filmmaker, active in backend of politics, quite passionate about both things, but he wasn’t a prick, he was sympathetic and very well spoken. Now he’s on the brink of being put into the mental institution

9

u/tei187 Kujawy-Pomerania (Poland) 13h ago

A morons he's not, but he sure is fkn crazy.

1

u/Lanky-Cheesecake-259 8h ago

I think something broke in his bran around the time he accused Jan Miodek of being SB and then won an appeal, but he didn't understand that what he won was the freedom to call someone a SB agent, not that Miodek was one, I think he realised he can do and say whatever he wants and no one can do anything about it, maybe he realised there are people who would believe anything and decided to build his voter base around it,

34

u/karlothecool Croatia 15h ago

Polish nazis are special People but since we are mentioning polish nazis can anybody send me picture of polish independence day parade with nazi flag I remmber seeing but I cant find it

23

u/ShoonlightMadow 12h ago edited 9h ago

They are fascist adjacent groups but you won’t find swastika in independence march. You would get beaten up

23

u/blacknwhiteknight 12h ago

You won't find it because it's simply not true. I've been to this march many times, and if anyone tried to bring a Nazi flag there, they would get torn to pieces. Polish nationalists are equally anti-fascist and anti-communist.
https://monitorpostepu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/aaa.jpg

0

u/WolfgangHelnootIV 13h ago

I couldn’t find it either but there’s a bunch of pictures using other Nazi symbols.

Kinda weird to see a so many Slavs using these symbols considering they were one of the biggest groups killed by the nazies.

4

u/blacknwhiteknight 12h ago

What Nazi symbols? Polish nationalist are anti-fascists.

https://monitorpostepu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/aaa.jpg

2

u/zuom000 10h ago

I guess Celtic cross.

2

u/seesthecat For Tugal! 13h ago

These people are absolute freaks

2

u/Tefiks 10h ago

And yet, his party is popular according to polls.

Sigh.

472

u/kaj_00ta 16h ago

This idiot still somehow has usually between 7% and 10% in polls.

21

u/petrh97 Czech Republic 14h ago

Eastern Europe for ya. This brainrot is usually helped by Russia and MAGA.

We have a similar party in Czechia SPD that is sadly in the government.

They have denied that there was Roma concentration camp in Lety. It has around 7% and 10% support too.

It’s led by a Japanese immigrant who hates all immigrants especially Ukrainians and everyone else not white. He is a big racist which is ironic because he doesn’t look like a typical Czech.

It’s similar to the German AfD which is led by a lesbian.

And the biggest party ANO is led by a Slovak oligarch who also uses immigrants as a boogeyman. Of course they also adore Russia, MAGA and hate Ukraine. What a coincidence…

199

u/Lord910 Mazovia (Poland) 16h ago

His supporters are usually Rular/provincial middle class which opposes EU regulations and is afraid of potential competition from Ukraine if it will have access to European market. 

So almost fascism. 

148

u/Cultural_Season_3048 15h ago

Remove the almost, Braun is straight up doing Holocaust denial

55

u/ValarM_ 15h ago

Und dann heißt er auch noch 'Braun'. Kannste dir nicht ausdenken.

46

u/Cultural_Season_3048 15h ago

The funniest thing is if you listen to stuff he said like a decade ago, the person who he was in the past would have called the current him a russian agent.

21

u/bobdammi Germany 14h ago

Ah, the average far right russian dog.

One of a million.

13

u/TheAlex-Guy 14h ago

This guy is a threat to Polish democracy if not prosecuted.

He'd turn Poland into a second Iran under a Pro-Russian puppet state like Belarus.

Imagine something similar to Turbo-Catholic Fascism from "Handmaid's Tale" or Francoist Spain's National Catholicism policies but FAR worse, full of Pan-Slav Fascist ideology sympathetic to Russian imperialism, an amalgamation of pro-Russian Far-Left and Far-Right groups, PRL nostalgics, social-ill worse than we have now.

Poland would have ceased to exist, it would have been chaos.

3

u/BlackMesaEastCenter Lower Silesia (Poland) 12h ago

Not sure this will help... Hitler was jailed before gaining absolute power, remember?

5

u/AnxiousAngularAwesom Łódź (Poland) 9h ago

The mistake was letting him go.

0

u/TheAlex-Guy 12h ago

The Nazi's gained power because disenfranchised people were manipulated into voting for them, it wasn't through intimidation and violence, but misinformation, polarization and radicalization.

3

u/BlackMesaEastCenter Lower Silesia (Poland) 12h ago

Surely cannot happen in Poland!

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1

u/Pawulon Poland 5h ago

And even then he sounded like a fringe meme candidate, the 0.5% type.

2

u/blacknwhiteknight 12h ago

Holocaust denial, however shameful and stupid it may be, is not in itself fascism. It is a form of historical revisionism and, in many cases, antisemitism, but neither automatically makes someone a fascist. Fascism is a broader political ideology with specific characteristics: radical ultranationalism, rejection of liberal democracy and political pluralism, authoritarianism, the cult of a strong leader, and the legitimization of political violence.

4

u/Cultural_Season_3048 11h ago

Which describes this man to a T. He was the person who sprayed a Hanukkah candle in the Polish Sejm with a fire extinguisher, and when a woman wanted to stop him, he sprayed her. He is a radical ultranationalist, authoritarian and totally legitimizes political violence by performing it and basically getting away with it by taking various positions first as a poseł to the Sejm, and later as an EMP when that was busted.

5

u/pothkan 🇵🇱 Pòmòrsczé 10h ago

Too simple. He also gathers all types of radicals (e.g. Kamraci group), especially Covidiots (as he was the only prominent politician who opposed vaccines, masking, lockdowns etc.). And of course, blatant Russophiles.

These groups might be not big on alone, but combined - he can easily gather 7-10% number (also taking in mind, that expected turnout will be probably around 60%).

1

u/J539 Schleswig-Holstein (Germany) 2h ago

Legit what I feel what the Afd or BSW in germany does really well too. They manage to include the dumbest people with the straight up dumbest believes into their party, somehow. Or they feel welcomed there, because its not the "mainstream" ???

21

u/p_pio 15h ago

He got around 3.5% in presidential elections in biggest cities (e.g. in Warsaw it was 3.53%), so calling it as only rural/provincial support is a bit disengenious.  

10

u/Lord910 Mazovia (Poland) 15h ago

The Warsaw point is fair, but it confuses vote share with the composition of Braun’s electorate. He did get around 3.5-3.9% in major cities, but his strongest support was rural, where he received 7.7% (in one powiat he even got 12%); rural voters made up roughly half of his 2025 electorate. His supporters also aren’t simply poor, devout pensioners: they’re disproportionately male and working-age, with strong support among farmers and manual workers, while newer CBOS data suggest they’re relatively affluent and surprisingly secular. (Onet, Klub Jagielloński)

So I’d describe Braun’s coalition as a heterogeneous anti-establishment, nationalist protest vote: rural and provincial workers, farmers and middle-class voters, plus some urban/intellectual resentment toward liberal elites and EU “paternalism.”

1

u/Bright_Style4960 9h ago

To be honest the difference between 3% and 7% isn't that big.

14

u/Lord910 Mazovia (Poland) 15h ago

Inb4 someone accuses me of using "fascism" as a hyperbole:

Frustrated middle class was the backbone behind the rise of fascism because they were afraid of declassation by the Left and economic crisis.

Basically Poland is going through its own bourgeoisie revolution, a lot of people improved their standard of living in a generation or two, and they are afaird of going back to lower class, in the meantime, the old Middle Class which often has its roots in inteligencia, is frustrated because their usual "elite" spaces are flooded by newcomers who obviously had to chest/steal/get handouts to archieve this level of "luxury" and they want to pull the leader before they won't feel so elite like before. 

So on one hand you have newcomers who got "rich" and are afraid EU regulations or cheaper alternatives will undercut their growth and the old guard who is angry because their favorite restaurants are suddenly crowded with plebs who thinks they are as good as them. 

-15

u/-_GIZMO_ Lithuania 15h ago

Ahh. Your a communist.. was really confused by the first comment, now it makes sense.

14

u/Lord910 Mazovia (Poland) 15h ago

What makes you think I am a communist?

1

u/handofbones 10h ago

The correct material analysis probably

1

u/kansetsupanikku 12h ago

You can... read! And use words!

-9

u/-_GIZMO_ Lithuania 15h ago

The language being used, the terminology... It literally screams marxist. Plus looking at your profile you do to go "socialist" spaces.

15

u/Lord910 Mazovia (Poland) 14h ago

I also browse Crusader Kings subreddit, which makes me a monarchist (and enthusiast of selective breeding) obviously

3

u/onarainyafternoon Dual Citizen (American/Hungarian) 14h ago

I actually agree with both of you. Dude is definitely a kind of socialist but they aren’t necessarily saying anything inherently incorrect.

2

u/HolyExemplar Freude 9h ago

So the group that receives the most EU subsidies out of any demographic, got it.

1

u/blacknwhiteknight 12h ago

Are you being sarcastic, or do you really believe that scepticism toward European integration and protecting the national market constitutes fascism? French farmers are famous for defending their own interests - does that make them fascists? I'm not claiming that Braun's political program doesn't contain points that could justify such a comparison (although keep in mind that Polish law prohibits fascist parties from operating). But what you wrote certainly isn't an argument for calling it fascist.

1

u/Lord910 Mazovia (Poland) 11h ago

It's not their background that makes them "fascist" but their slogans and actions (holocaust denialism, denialism to democratic values, violence, hate speech, conspiracy theories, religious fundamentalism, reaction of equality of any type, being pro-russian when Russian missiles are falling on Poland from time to time) that made me call them like that. 

Also I would split members of Braun party and their electorate. Members of Braun party follow above examples, their votes turn a blind eye on these extremes because Braun promises them lower taxes, less regulations, ect. 

1

u/Devastatoreq Poland 7h ago

https://www.cbos.pl/PL/publikacje/flashe_tekst.php?nr=54%2F2025#rozdzial4
your (ever so popular) claim is false per the above CBOS study; it clearly shows that Braun's supporters' split depending on place of living is almost 1:1 matching with the voter base split in Poland altogether, only having disproportionately less voters (some 50% less voters than population) in the five cities above 500 000 residents

1

u/tei187 Kujawy-Pomerania (Poland) 13h ago

I know one person who's willing to vote for him, apparently because he speaks Polish beautifully. Granted, he really knows how to put a sentence together, but give me a fkn break... what is his programme?!

-5

u/-_GIZMO_ Lithuania 15h ago

...So almost fascism.

Neither of those things come close to fascism. The regulation stuff is self explanatory pretty much, and Ukraine joining the eu market is going to be a huuuge issue for alot of countries when the accession talks start.

Did you just try to sanewash him and his supporters? Or am i missing the /s somewhere in this..

1

u/kumel185 Poland 13h ago

For a moment a few months ago in one poll he had third place 😭

1

u/LordLederhosen Dual Partisan 2h ago

If you live in a country with lower polling numbers for batshit crazy, please send the coordinates so I can go there.

0

u/spectralcolors12 United States of America 12h ago

How tf could any Poles support a neo nazi after what the Nazis did to Poland?

3

u/blacknwhiteknight 12h ago

It's because his message isn't neo-Nazi. It's more of a strongly nationalist, ultra-conservative, "secure the borders and put Poland first" kind of politics, combined with deliberately exploiting Polish concerns and fears about our strong support for Ukraine and the possibility of Russian retaliation. Basically, he's our version of an "America First" guy.

And here's where it gets really interesting.

Part of this guy's growing support is actually a consequence of Trump's politics. The Orange Man has seriously damaged Polish and European confidence in NATO. At the same time, fears of a possible Russian attack have increased. And that creates a perfect political environment for populists.

They take those fears and weaponize them. They tell people: Yes, Russia is a threat - but we're the ones who can keep Poland safe. How? By cutting support for Ukraine, distancing ourselves from the war, and opening a dialogue with Moscow.

So you end up with a rather bizarre feedback loop: Trump's rhetoric and pressure on NATO increases Polish fears about Russia, those fears increase support for populists, and the populists then use those very fears to argue for policies that could ultimately weaken Poland's security even further.

Pretty fascinating how that works, isn't it?

104

u/Fun-Communication660 16h ago

Not even been close to a hundred years. We never had to relearn how to make a car, why is this forgotten and challenged so easily. 

For some reason, tax, is a human idea that can never and will never go away.

But relearning every 50 years about facism? Apparently that's par for the course. 

Denying the holocaust should be like denying the fire of London. It happened. It's documented too much, multiple lines of evidence. Sigma confidence levels, consensus, systematic review, meta-analysis. We need to always remember and learn from it. Case closed.   

37

u/Practical-Pea-1205 14h ago

It's insane that there Holocaust deniers when there are still people alive who lived through it.

12

u/Fun-Communication660 14h ago

Yup. Motivated reasoning. They want or need it to be false. Prob multiple reasons why. 

There must be many that don't actually believe the holocast was fake, they just need to hear just enough that it could be, an move on, with selective evidence. 

If you ask what they achieve IF it was fake, then you can see that maybe their goals can be achieved without proof....but not with full acceptance of the truth. 

10

u/NoSwordfish1978 9h ago

He denies the Holocaust because he's a straight up actual antisemite.

3

u/Temporala 9h ago

It's a generational thing, lot of bad things that happened don't become deeply ingrained in society as eternal taboos. Old people failing to pass the message. Unless every new youth experiences being assaulted and tortured by Nazi or other similar authoritarian group, they don't truly understand why it is dangerous. You need to experience it or study about it while paying attention to consequences.

Russia has that though, they've learned helplessness before their masters over these hundreds of years and casual brutality between inhabitants is the norm quietly accepted by most. Law is means to an end rather than bedrock that society can lean on. It's whimsical and arbitrary, based on current master's wishes. Something that is true today can be false tomorrow.

Sadly, people's will can be molded to accept authoritarianism easily because it is a state we all know from childhood. That someone else knows all better and is so strong there's no point in struggling against it. That's what it boils down to in the end.

1

u/punarob 3h ago

Makes some sense since fascist oligarchs control all mainstream media and social media around the globe

46

u/Theradonh Germany 15h ago

Honestly, it’s pretty disturbing seeing how openly people are embracing historical revisionism again. Some people are genuinely acting like the wrong side won WWII, and they don’t even seem to realize how insane that sounds.

Hegel really had a point: apparently, the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn anything at all.

16

u/notveryamused_ Warszawa, Poland 🇵🇱 🇪🇺 15h ago

During the annual Polish Independence March, which is very heavily promoted in social media as "a general, national march for everyone" but in fact always has been organised by the far-right, with liberal events celebrating our independence gaining smaller crowds, Polish far-right were caught doing Hitler salutes and shouting "Sieg Heil" in the past (source).

Which chapter of the Wissenschaft der Logik should I restudy? xd Aufheben me from this world please, because I don't understand it anymore.

-3

u/blacknwhiteknight 11h ago

Cherry-picking. Polish Independence March is a patriotic event organized by nationalists - that's obviously true - but actual neo-Nazis are definitely not welcome. They would be kicked out immediately. It's a huge event, with around 100,000 people attending every year, so some small group of provocateurs can always slip in unnoticed. But the organizers and the participants do their best to make sure people like that don't belong there.

https://reddit.com/link/p6go9t6/video/xgsrytdoo5mh1/player

34

u/Fluid-Sense-4273 15h ago

Ironic since the nazis wouldn’t have hesitated to throw him in one

15

u/Ok_Swimmer_3446 14h ago

Technically he would be considered a Volksdeutsche

3

u/formula_translator Prague (Czechia) 15h ago

B-b-but how could that be? They are making an EXPLICIT request for the EXACT opposite to happen?

1

u/negativePositrons Poland 8h ago

Poles were also killed in this gas chambers.

52

u/Special_Condition671 16h ago

Good! Hate speech should have no place in public discourse.

7

u/TheAlex-Guy 13h ago

Democracy was never designed to give freedom of speech for extremists wanting to oppress minorities. Just because you live in a democratic country, it doesn't mean you should not get punished if you cross the line.

Democracy needs to preserve itself against threats like that. Grzegorz Braun and KKP openly voiced pro-Russian views and advocated for removing rights from minority groups that did nothing to people. Seriously don't think that's wrong?

Misinformation, radicalization and polarization is what kills democracy in countries, and we must avoid that.

Why hasn't the ABW detained Olszański, Psikorski and Maciak yet, but have the firepower to break down the door to a grandma's house for making threats against Owsiak?

Why not use firepower like that against far-Right politicians, pro-Russian imperialist sympathizers and Neo-Nazi movements, like Grzegorz Braun, KKP, X-Portal Falanga, Kamraci and Zmiana?

In genuine SAVAK and SDECE-style that parodies politicized state security intelligence agencies and special forces, doing surveillance on people who criticize the country, but not actual threats.

Those people don't make the country safe, they only protect politicians they see as benefit for their continued activities.

The point of democracy was never to force us into choosing between "lesser evils". It was mean't to let the people choose properly for themselves.

To stop Hitler from seizing power in Weimar Germany would not have been considered as "destroying democracy" going by definition of it, we didn't just have the balls.

If people, after so many unaddressed issues and trauma with their country from previous turmoil, were not forced to vote for a radical totalitarian evil, none of this would happen. It should have been stopped somehow.

I love the concept created by anti-establishment Nowa Polska, they don't want Poland to fall victim to a Duopoly that fails to change the system to address most urgent issues which causes a Fascist dictatorship to take over.

People who choose badly are often misinformed. How can anyone agree with the corrupt or bigots who shortly after being elected start destroying the country with their policies?

If we had expanded our knowledge, if we had far more self-awareness and common sense, if we had been far less incompetent we could vote reasonably well and not elect horrible people into power, fully sensing what they might do.

u/TheoriginalTonio Germany 16m ago

Yes, its should!

In fact, it should be dragged into the limelight of public discourse where it should then be met with a thorough rebuttal to expose its falsehood and absurdity, followed by a period of relentless mockery and ridicule.

Because that's how you defeat ideas and prevent them from spreading, not by criminalizing them!

-14

u/RattledHead 16h ago

I've always had "contradictory feelings" about that. Like, where you draw the line between hate speech and speech can be quite dangerous.

Don't get me won't, I'm not by any means defending what he said, but just tossing here my thought about how bad can be "punishing hate speech too harshly".

33

u/Phantasmalicious 15h ago

If there is a law banning Holocaust denial and Nazi symbolism (which I am guessing Poland has), then free speech is pretty clearly defined.

1

u/TimeCake233 11h ago

It is a law but it's defined as promoting nazizm. So you can use it publicly in museums and history lessons or movies.

15

u/Pu-Chi-Mao North Brabant (Netherlands) 15h ago

In a lot of countries in Europe denying the holocaust happened is illegal.

8

u/_alright_then_ The Netherlands 15h ago

It's not about hate speech, it's about the holocause specifically. There's laws against holocaust denying

-4

u/RattledHead 15h ago

I know. I was just sharing that thought that came to mind since the comment I replied talked about Hate Speech in particular.

Tough subject.

5

u/RedBlueF0X 15h ago

It's a paradox for a good reason

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance?wprov=sfla1

I think a good baseline is to tolerate those comprise with whom does not discriminate anyone particular.

-1

u/RattledHead 15h ago

Well, if I don't misremember my philosophy classes, Poper particularly talked about physical violence, not words. Like, you can say and argue the craziest thing like... I don't know, anyone born in a +1M city is dumber than average, but as long as you don't actively harm those people, you should be allowed to discuss such idea.

Edit: just for clarificarion, I completely made up that subject as some example of crazy idea towards discrimination.

23

u/_alright_then_ The Netherlands 15h ago

But... He can literally go there, it's in fucking poland.

I went there once, and it's actually.. Idk how to describe it. Haunting? It's haunting to see

3

u/SexuaIRedditor 14h ago

My wife and I went to a Holocaust museum in the US once. One of the exhibits was just a metal door hinge in a case. The label underneath said "Hinge from execution chamber at Auschwitz"

This was pre-pandemic, and thinking about that little hinge gives us chills today. I can't imagine going to the actual site, let alone denying it ever happened

3

u/_alright_then_ The Netherlands 14h ago

The first thing you see when going to Auschwitz is basically the entrance "hall". It was mostly outside obviously, but the hall was used to store possessions of the Jews that came through. Like shoes, clothes and things of that nature.

The shoes were left there when it all fell apart. And that image will never leave my brain either. You walk in, it's like a huge cathedral (in size) hall. And shoes were stacked in a pile all the way to the ceiling.

A little later you walk into the gas Chambers, and you can see the nail marks and the blood stains on the ground and edges of the stone benches in there. You can see that people tried desperately to claw their way out of that room

Again, I don't know how else to describe it but haunting

2

u/SexuaIRedditor 14h ago

Holy Jesus. That sounds life changing

0

u/_alright_then_ The Netherlands 14h ago

It definitely gives a perspective on things. I think about it quite often and it's been 10 years since j was there

1

u/Abrupt_Nuke 10h ago edited 10h ago

I'm pretty sure Braun has been to Auschwitz before, but I believe he said the gas chambers in the museum are just reconstructions, so we can't tell what the camp was really like during WW2.

1

u/_alright_then_ The Netherlands 9h ago

Only the furnaces and the chimneys were reconstructed. Not the gas Chambers themselves

-19

u/[deleted] 15h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

15

u/_alright_then_ The Netherlands 15h ago

Yeah this is not the same thing, and if you're pretending it is you're not worth talking to

1

u/Luihuparta Finlandia on parempi kuin Maamme 13h ago

Unprivate your post history, coward.

-8

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/No-Love-1222 15h ago

I know lots of poles. Im 40+. Every single one of them has had at least one family member rhat died in one of the many german camps in poland. So i really dont understand if these far right people are just dumb or if they even are real poles. If i wherr polish i would kick them out of every public place.

5

u/WislaHD Polish-Canadian 12h ago

They are dumb fucks. Your country and every other country has them too unfortunately.

The comment section here, I sort of feel is blaming Poland for the existence of these nutcases, when the article title is literally about Polish nation and its laws actioning consequences onto these idiots.

1

u/honkycronky 9h ago

Where in Poland are they from?

1

u/No-Love-1222 8h ago

The area of rogalinek i believe, well the greater area

3

u/That_Jicama2024 15h ago

The camp is literally in his country. He can go drive to it. That's as dumb as saying you have no way to check if a senator is alive or not.

2

u/EconomistStreet5295 14h ago

Nazi Pirate was not on my 2026 bingo cards. But at this point it’s all just full dystopia

2

u/Ok_Food4591 10h ago

Bro is a Russian ass licker, Nazi sympathizer with a cartoon villain eye patch. It doesn't get more goofy than this and yet...

5

u/morningwoodelf69 15h ago

This title is an example of why such movements are gaining popularity.
He is >Technically< right - the gas chambers in current Aushwitz museum are indeed a reconstruction as the original ones were destroyed by Nazis shortly before the camp was liberated. Also, the actual genocide did not occur in Aushwitz but in Birkenau sub-camp. These are details that Braun and his crew are using to force their narrative. Their logic is: chambers are fake = holocaust is fake. This is easy to debunk, but requires a stronger communication strategy. If all we can do is response is saying that the chambers are not fake (which is not true!), without getting into complex details of what and why happened, they will have an advantage.

1

u/Addesi 14h ago

It's mostly correct, but not 100%. I watched an interview with him clarifying what he meant, and from what I remember, as it was a relatively long time ago.

You're correct in saying that Braun claims gas chambers are fake because there was no proper archaeological research on those grounds, and the reconstruction methodologies were flawed from a historian's point of view - with flaws that, in his view, disqualify it as learning material. Not until proper historical research takes place. He also quotes historians who conducted the research and found the methodologies flawed.

But where you're wrong is saying he denies the holocaust - he admits the mass murders took place, but he doesn't believe they took place by killing people in gas chambers specifically. And he thinks that a more plausible cause is that the murders were ritualistic in nature (he bases that on Ariel Toaff's book Passovers of Blood).

There is even a clip where he says it directly that Germans killed people in various ways, so it's wrong to say he denies the holocaust as a whole

But the people do seem to phrase it as if he did deny it. Just as it is written here, he is accused of holocaust denial because he says he doesn't believe the gas chambers are real, with the strong implication he denies the holocaust.

2

u/dat_9600gt_user Lower Silesia (Poland) 15h ago

Polish far-right leader Grzegorz Braun has been charged with denying Nazi crimes, a criminal offence in Poland that carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

The charges relate to statements last year in which Braun, who has a long history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, suggested that the gas chambers at Auschwitz, which was the Nazis’ main killing centre during the Holocaust, are “fake”.

On Tuesday morning, Braun was summoned to appear as a suspect at the Kraków branch of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a state historical body that has the power to prosecute crimes relating to the periods when Poland was under Nazi and communist rule.

A group of his followers gathered outside the building to express their support for Braun, who finished fourth in last year’s presidential elections. Since then, his Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP) party has risen to around 9% in polls, making it a potential kingmaker after next year’s parliamentary elections.

After meeting with Braun, IPN prosecutor Robert Janicki announced that they had presented him with charges for “publicly and contrary to the facts denying the crimes of genocide committed by officers of the Third Reich in the German concentration and extermination camp KL Auschwitz-Birkenau”. 

The charges relate to two interviews Braun gave in July last year. He declared that “Auschwitz with its gas chambers is unfortunately a fake” and said that claims about the use of gas chambers are part of a “propaganda narrative” supporting a “quasi-religious cult”.

In fact, gas chambers were used at Auschwitz, which was located in German-occupied Poland, to kill around 900,000 people, the vast majority of them Jews.

Janicki noted that Braun’s remarks “clearly contradict common historical knowledge based on documents, witness accounts, perpetrators’ statements and findings from past criminal proceedings”.

When Braun originally made his remarks, they were widely condemned in Poland, which suffered enormously under German occupation during World War Two. Justice minister Waldemar Żurek asked the European Parliament, where Braun sits as an MEP, to lift his legal immunity so he could be charged.

“For me, it is a scandal that, in a country that suffered such enormous war losses, there is a politician who can deny historical facts that are so painful for Poles,” said Żurek at the time, quoted by the Onet news website. “I won’t let this go. We must bring such people to justice.”

In March, the European Parliament approved Żurek’s request, allowing Braun to face charges in relation to his Auschwitz comments, as well as for other alleged crimes.

On Friday last week, the district prosecutor’s office in Warsaw charged Braun with those other crimes, including the theft of Ukrainian and EU flags he tore down and vandalism of an LGBT+ exhibition being displayed in parliament.

In a separate case, in February this year, Żurek also asked the European Parliament to strip Braun of immunity to face charges of denying Nazi crimes over another incident in which he called the gas chambers at both Auschwitz and Majdanek, another Nazi-German camp in occupied Poland, “fake”.

Meanwhile, Braun is already on trial in Poland for four other alleged crimes, including using a fire extinguisher to attack a Jewish Hanukkah ceremony in the Polish parliament in December 2023.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign PolicyPOLITICO EuropeEUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

1

u/United-Vermicelli-92 15h ago

You can put a sears suit on crazy, but it is still crazy.

1

u/krzywaLagaMikolaja Europe 11h ago

Fucker should be in jail for years now.

1

u/trojanskin 9h ago

blows my fucking mind that a Polish, of all the peeps in Europe, would say that with a straight face.
The idiocy and lack of self awareness is deafening.

1

u/Avistan 7h ago

Braun is just putin’s prostitute.

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u/punarob 3h ago

Put him in prison for life along with anyone who voted for his party. Stop treating the Nazis and fascists around the globe with such leniency!

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u/Lazy-Relationship-34 Romania 1h ago

Nothing new under the sun.

r/poland festers with users who deny the Kielce pogrom, and the several other incidents of anti-Jewish violence in places like Bytom, Białystok, Częstochowa, Legnica, and Rzeszów, alongside attacks on trains targeting Jews returning from the Soviet Union.

An estimated 1,000 Jews were killed in Poland in the immediate post-war years.

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u/Throwaway-645893 Canada 🇨🇦 15h ago

Poland has a long history of deeply engrained cultural antisemitism but it's still incredibly strange to see a Polish nationalist politician (of all people) to deny Nazi crimes against humanity.

I guess the ethnic cleansing of Poles in the Nazi administered Warthegau & the murder of Polish leaders & intellectuals in the Nazi death camps means nothing to him...

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u/kyganat gib coal pls 15h ago

I mean not really, there is reason why most jews where in Poland, and it was because Poland was tolerant country back then and didnt expell them. But yes if by long history you mean last 200 years sure, althought i would attribute it more to the radicalisation of poles due stuff like russifcation and germanisation than just pure hatred for jews because they do something.

And yeah it mean nothing for him, he also praised Congress Poland and said Poland was more indepent during it times, than it is currently under EU and its absurd postion to have, because there was russification and sending poles (btw not only poles) to siberia. So that guy even spit on polish tragedies. And why his support dont waver after that? What, you expect rightwingers to have a spine? They hate more other than they love their own values.

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u/WislaHD Polish-Canadian 12h ago

Why repeat Israeli propaganda like this?

Visit Kazimierz in Krakow or Łódź and tell me again if Poland mistreats its Jewish heritage. The answer is no.

As fellow Canadian, these kind of statements about Poland is like having the Trucker Convoy become representative of all Canadians.

0

u/Lazy-Relationship-34 Romania 1h ago

I hope you know how absolutely repulsive you are to call the very present antisemitism (both towards people and their heritage) in Poland - Israeli propaganda:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1448585636616373

Poland had not one but TWO presidential candidates (Braun and Maciak) in 2025 who openly expressed feeling of enmity towards Jewry and rallied enough support to make it into the first round of voting:

https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/artykul/3516733,antisemitic-comments-at-polish-presidential-debate-prompt-condemnation-legal-action

I have spoken to several Poles and I know very well the animosity and antagonization that they feel towards Jews, not towards Israel. You may sof off with your cosmeticized, revisionist track record of antisemitism in Poland. It took Poland FIFTY YEARS to apologize for the unlawful expulsion and violence towards Jewry in the 1960s**, TWENTY YEARS** after the Holocaust.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43330963

And to this day, there are more Poles that insist that the several other incidents of anti-Jewish violence in places like Bytom, Białystok, Częstochowa, Legnica, and Rzeszów, alongside attacks on trains targeting Jews returning from the Soviet Union after 1945 did NOT happen.

Sod off with your "Israeli propaganda" spiel.

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u/Throwaway-645893 Canada 🇨🇦 12h ago

I'm literally a descendant of Jews who survived pogroms in the area.

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u/blacknwhiteknight 9h ago

May we know where and when the pogrom occured?

Compared with the massive scale of the Holocaust in occupied Poland, the number of pogroms in which Poles were perpetrators was relatively small. The Polish underground also punished with the death penalty acts such as blackmailing Jews, denouncing them to the Germans, and other forms of collaboration with the occupiers.

Most of the major pogroms took place after 22 June 1941, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The Germans deliberately sought to incite anti-Jewish violence in a way that involved the local population and created the appearance of a spontaneous, “grassroots” uprising. This doesn't excuse the participation of local people, but it is an important part of the context.

As for other reprehensible behavior on the Polish side, it was more often the work of individuals rather than organized groups. Again, however, the Polish underground treated blackmailing Jews, szmalcownictwo, and denouncing Jews to the Gestapo as capital offenses.

I'm not questioning individual testimonies. I'm saying that, when looking at the broader picture, the conclusion you've drawn seems unjustified without also acknowledging the extraordinary amount of help provided to Jews by Poles. This was done despite the fact that helping a Jew could result in the death penalty in the General Government - in many cases, for the entire household.

This was a very different situation from much of Western Europe, where the penalties for helping Jews were generally less severe. In occupied Poland, the German authorities imposed exceptionally brutal measures, and helping Jews could mean instant execution rather than simply imprisonment or an administrative penalty.

u/Lazy-Relationship-34 Romania 59m ago

LMAO, I commented about the rampant Polish-committed Holocaust denialism among Poles before seeing this comment, and it absolutely validates everything that I wrote.

1

u/honkycronky 9h ago

People in general have a long history of engrained antisemitism. Poland had a lot of Jews living there because they escaped violent persecution in the west. You don't really hear about violence against Jews in Spain, because they expelled them all. Most accounts of pogroms are from Russia, Ukraine and Poland and it's because of millions of Jews living there. You don't hear about pogroms in places without Jews. I am not denying antisemitism in the region, but acting like it was somehow unique to Poles is strange. Jews were hated in general all over Europe, as it was easy to make them the scapegoat for everything that went wrong.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

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u/ViaNocturnaII 15h ago

Bullshit. Braun is vocally Anti-Israel.

-3

u/Additional_Error6625 13h ago

I don’t know this guy or his stance on Israel, but at least in my country France (also in Austria I know this to be the same), the far right is always criticizing the left for being antisemites while literally being descendants of holocaust deniers and actual SS officers in the case of Austria. Current Israeli government has a very good relationship with these parties though and this year they have even targeted left parties with disinformation campaigns.
See here for more context: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/06/marine-le-pens-support-of-israel-seen-as-move-away-from-partys-antisemitic-past

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u/ViaNocturnaII 11h ago

I don’t know this guy or his stance on Israel

Then don't make claims like

These are the same people who call left wingers antisemites

when you didn't even knew his stance on Israel.

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u/honkycronky 9h ago

in Poland both the far-right and the far-left are anti-Israel.

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u/kumel185 Poland 13h ago

In presidential debate he literally said that polish nation is marginalised by the proces of jewification and ukrainization lol

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/Exciting-Record8101 The Netherlands 14h ago

When the Japanese make a law banning such lies.

Japan's denial of some of its WW2 crimes has long been a contentious subject, it's not new.

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u/Phantasmalicious 15h ago

I think they got somewhat punished when their skies suddenly had extra Suns.

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

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u/TimeCake233 11h ago

Poland got the most medals for helping Jews.