The PiS wants to boycott Juchniewicz. It's about his attitude towards reparation from Germany

Juchniewicz. Tasks and performance

The main tasks of Prof. Ruchniewicz will include drafting proposals aimed at improving social and border cooperation between Poland and Germany, supporting the improvement of social contacts and cooperation with the Coordinator for German-Polish Intersocial and Border Cooperation. He will besides support the head of the MFA in dialog with Germany on historical policy.

Additionally, its tasks include monitoring the implementation of the German-Polish home task in Berlin and activities aimed at including Polish interests in this project. Prof. Ruchniewicz will besides make Polish language teaching in Germany more accessible.

Prof. Krzysztof Henryk Ruchniewicz is an outstanding historian and non-maturist, acting manager of the Willy Brandt German and European Studies Centre and associate of the legislature of the University of Wrocław for 2020–2024. In 2023 he was awarded the award of the European University of Viadrina in Frankfurt am Oder due to his outstanding merit in promoting the Polish-German agreement and the European idea.

Professor Ruchniewicz received a number of awards, including the Golden Cross of Merit for the improvement of discipline in 2011, The Cross of Merit at the Order of Merit of Germany in 2019 for its commitment to the improvement of Polish-German relationship and Medal commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Peaceful Revolution and Unification of Germany "Sachsen – Land der Friedlichen Revolution" for peculiar merits in Polish-German relations and civic activity in 2021.

The PiS beats the alarm

Not everyone, however, enjoys this choice. Paul Jabłoński, who called the full situation a scandal, took the level in the matter. This is not the first reaction of this kind, as Prof. Ruchniewicz and his squad from the Centre im. Willy Brandt regularly participates in major historical debates, which sometimes leads to attacks by PiS politicians.

Especially loud about the scientist – and this is the situation that Jabłoński refers to – was after the publication of a text in cooperation with the Conference of Ambassadors of Poland earlier this year. It called for the improvement of the situation of the surviving victims of Nazism and the settlement of the PiS reparation campaign.

In 1 of the interviews, Ruchniewicz explained his position. In an interview with the LRT, he was asked why the subject of reparation became so loud. Ruchniewicz replied that this is not a fresh subject at all, and it can be suspected that it is becoming a frequently discussed substitute issue, especially in Polish-German relations, erstwhile another crucial problems are overlooked. It is also, in his opinion, a subject that continues to arouse emotions in Polish society, frequently due to a deficiency of full knowing of the context.

The prof. felt that raising issues specified as reparations during the Russian-Ukrainian War meant weakening allies. This will not long-wavely contribute to strengthening Polish-German relations, which will surely not be the same as a fewer years ago.