As my colleague Daniel Trilling has pointed out on our excellent Cultural Capital blog, the Conservative MEP Roger Helmer has stuck his head above the parapet and defended his friend and leader in Europe, Michael Kaminski – he who has caused so much concern among the senior European Jewish community.
His defence – and their jolly picture – speak for themselves. But his description of Kaminski’s past comes with some glaring ommissions. Here is Helmer’s summary:
The leader of our new Group in the European parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), is the Polish MEP Michal Tomasz Kaminski. He is a very sound conservative, and a good friend of mine, and I am delighted that he is the leader of our new group.. As a teenager in communist Poland, he listened covertly to the BCC and the Voice of America on a clandestine radio set, and he was inspired by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. He decided he wanted to be a conservative, and a parliamentarian, and he achieved both ambitions. Elected first to the Polish national parliament, he is now an MEP.
And here is that of Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland:
It is clear that Mr Kaminski was a member of the NOP, a group that is openly far-right and neo-Nazi.” Asked about the Tories’ new alliance with Kaminski, the chief rabbi said: “Anyone who would want to align himself with a person who was an active member of NOP and the Committee to Defend the Good Name of Jedwabne, which was established to deny historical facts of the massacre, needs to understand with what and by whom he is being represented.
Compare and contrast. Again, I ask: who do you believe? The Tory bloggers, or the Polish Rabbis?
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