Nearly 1 in 5 say they would not accept Jews as fellow citizens in Poland

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Poland recently enacted a libel law aimed at punishing those who publicly accuse Poles of complicity in the Holocaust or other crimes against humanity. The new law has raised concerns that the country’s history of anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Poland could be obscured.

In today’s Poland, most adults say they are willing to accept Jews as fellow citizens, neighbors and family members, according to a Pew Research Center survey of Poland and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe conducted in 2015 and 2016. For instance, about seven-in-ten or more Poles say they would accept Jews as neighbors or fellow citizens.

At the same time, however, a sizable minority of Polish adults take the opposite position. Almost one-in-five Poles (18%) say they would not be willing to accept Jews as citizens of their country, and a similar share (20%) say they would not want Jewish neighbors. Nearly a third of Polish adults (30%) say they would not accept a Jewish person as a member of their family.