Warsaw: Church voices concern over 'anti-Semitic' radio station

The Papal Nuncio in Warsaw, Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk, has written to Polish bishops urging them to deal with a Catholic radio station which has been accused of making anti-Semitic statements. The station, Radio Maryja, made a broadcast in which they claimed that Jewish people were making an industry out of Holocaust reparations. During a broadcast on 27 March, the radio's presenter Stanislaw Michalkiewicz accused Jews of "trying to force our government to pay extortion money disguised as 'compensation payments'" for property lost during and after World War II. Last Thursday, Polish newspapers on Thursday published a letter from Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, in which he urged the government to close down the radio station because of its "xenophobia, chauvinism and anti-Semitism." Monsignor Kowalczyk wrote in his letter to the bishops: "The Holy See expresses its deep concern about Radio Maryja's political commitments." He urged the bishops to "overcome the difficulties caused by some of the radio's broadcasts and activities."