Jeszcze Polska nie zginela

This is the first line of the Polish National Anthem.  It means "Poland Has Not Yet Perished".  This phrase was also often used as a slogan by the members of Polish Home Army during World War 2.

Poland to this day is still getting a bad rap as a result of the Holocaust that largely happened within its territory.  There are reasons for it: the anti-Semitism was rampant in Poland, and often Poles would betray Jews to the Nazis for a price.  However, unlike Vichy French, some Lithuanians, some Latvians and some Estonians, Poles did not take a direct role in the actual murder of the Jews.  In Yad Vashem the largest number of names of Righteous Gentiles are Polish.  Home Army was reluctant to aid Mordechai Anielewicz's left-leaning ZOB, which could be understandable, given the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland in 1939.  However, Home Army did support pro-capitalist ZZW, which had the ideology similar to the modern Likud Party in Israel.  Home Army also created Council for Aid to Jews, which managed to save thousands of Jews.  There were also Polish heroes like Henryk Iwanski, who fought shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish fighters during Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  The Jews in the Ghetto fought under 2 flags: the red-and-white Flag of Poland and the blue-and-white with the Star of David.  There were also heroes like Jan Karski, who delivered the evidence of the Holocaust to the Allies.

Now these Polish heroes have yet another reason to be proud of their country (via LGF):

A conference of UN NGOs (non-governmental organizations) on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to be hosted at the European Parliament this month, will be boycotted by Polish Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from across the political spectrum, who say that the conference is biased against Israel.

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"I will not take part in this conference. I saw the materials prepared by the organizers," Bronislaw Geremek, a Polish MEP, was quoted by Polish website, Europa21 as saying.

"Although there is no official statement that Israel must be pushed down to the sea there, the choice of subjects and the attitude towards the problems shows that it will be a biased, conflict generating conference. Actually we can call it anti-Israeli," he said.

"There is not the first such initiative. (The) Pro-Palestinian lobby is very active here. If in fact, the conference will become propagandist, Israelis can count on Poles," Boguslaw Sonik, another Polish MEP, said.

Konrad Szymanski, a third MEP, said: "Israel's objections are fully justified. (The) UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People is a platform for activity of various extremists. According to the most of them Israel should disappear."

"I am astonished that European Parliament allowed such activity to be placed in its building. If there is any activity against the conference, i.e. a petition signed by MEPs, I will be very glad to support it," Szymanski added.

Thank you, Poland.

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