"This is how democracy works. But for Poland it is simply a disgrace," he said, commenting on the results of the presidential election, Polish historian Prof. Paweł Machcewicz in an interview with the German paper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung".
Machcewicz stressed that Karol Nawrocki had contacts with the environment of "aggressive anti-communist stadium hooligans", among which are many neo-Nazis with "appropriate tattoos". "Nawrocki spent many years in this criminal environment. This is part of his biography," the historian said.
There is no social state in Poland
Machcewicz recalled that after taking up the position of manager of the Museum of the Second planet War in Gdańsk Nawrocki in 2017, he dismissed 60 workers who formed the facility. "He brags about the cleaners, saying he yet put in a Conservative museum".
When asked about the motives of Nawrocki voters, the historian recalled that the economical transformation in Poland after 1990 ran according to American models alternatively than based on the Western, Social Democratic model. "We don't have a social state. wellness care system, housing, education – it's all a disaster. Urban mediate class sends children to private schools, uses almost exclusively commercial private wellness care. This is not possible in the countryside" - explains Machcewicz.
Youth Rebellion
There is peculiarly large discontent among young people who decision to cities to make careers and gain small and have no housing. "Young people, especially young men, are addressed by the nationalist, frequently xenophobic slogans of the PiS and the Confederation. These parties are fueling concerns, above all from Germany, which supposedly want to dominate us economically and want to impose on us the regulation of LGBT environments. The EU is only a puppet in the hands of the Germans," said Machcewicz.
"PiS succeeded in demolishing Germany in the past 20 years," he stressed. Referring to the issue of war reparations, the historian said that many Poles believe that Germany should pay reparations, although there is no legal basis for this. In his opinion (former) Chancellor Olaf Scholz failed to make a motion to win Poles. "If (the Chancellor) Merz won't make it either, we'll be in a dead end. Germany could pay compensation to erstwhile prisoners of concentration camps. There are no more than a fewer thousand. In 3 or 4 years they will besides be gone," said Machcewicz.
According to the historian, polarization in Poland will deepen and the influence of the far right will grow. 'This is bad not only for Poland, but for Europe as a whole', said Machcewicz.
Prof. Paweł Machcewicz was manager of the planet War II Museum from 2008 to 2017. He is simply a prof. at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
