Poland complained about the depiction of Poles in a Ha’aretz cartoon.
According to The Associated Press, a spokesman for the Polish Embassy in
Tel Aviv said a cartoon showing Polish passengers on a train, drinking liquor
and harassing a Jewish woman, “describes the Poles as vicious drunks and
in a negative way. They look very ugly and not nice. This is a very difficult
issue.”The cartoon, republished Thursday in the Polish daily newspaper Rzecpospoilita, originally was used to illustrate the story of a woman who escaped
from Poland during World War II. Nir Becher, editor of the Ha’aretz supplement
that printed the cartoon, told AP, “We aren’t saying anything
against the Polish people as a whole. This is a description of the
people who were there at that moment in time, according to testimony of the
woman who was there.”
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