Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] AN INTERGENERATIONAL BLOOD LIBEL 677that, while public funds were spent to restate and perpetuate a libel, nomoney or will is available to retract or correct it.Requests for assistance from Professor Krzysztof Sliwinski, at thattime the Polish ambassador to the Jewish Diaspora, are neither acknowledgednor acted upon. Efforts to solicit the intercession of Pope John Paul IIwere constrained by his advancing age and failing health.The town officials have produced something that negates their goodintent, reestablishes and thus perpetuates a slander of innocent formerPolish citizens, and disgraces the honor of Poland. There is an unfortunateinverse parallel to be found when contrasting the actions of 1993Tarnobrzeg with the events of two other small villages some 200 kilometersupstream on the Vistula, namely Oswiecim and Brzezinka, better known bytheir German names, Auschwitz and Birkenau. In these latter places, a portionof the greatest evil of the previous century was perpetrated. Yet someunknown number of mindless people in Europe, the Americas, and theMuslim world now suggest that the mass murder of Jews, gypsies, andChristians in these places never happened.In Tarnobrzeg, by contrast, we have the exact opposite, where thoughtfulpeople understand that an invented myth leading to a terrible and wickedinjustice was true.The image of the Vistula as it flows toward the Baltic Sea gives rise toan unusual panorama of the continuity of hate: the ashes of the innocentvictims that were cast into the river at Oswiecim/Brzezinka meet and minglewith the ashes of the innocents burned alive in the Tarnobrzeg tragedyof 1757 and 1993.*Daniel Leeson is a retired businessman and former symphonic orchestra musician.His previous pieces for the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism were on Mormonbaptisms of the Jewish dead, Judensau depictions in today’s Europe, and antisemitismin Wagner operas.