Polish Prosecutors Investigate Far-Right Lawmaker For Auschwitz Comments

Grzegorz Braun extinguished Hanukkah candles in parliament with a fire extinguisher in 2023.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish prosecutors launched a preliminary investigation after a far-right lawmaker described the gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp as a “fake.”

Grzegorz Braun, a member of the European Parliament, has previously been accused of antisemitism, and extinguished Hanukkah candles in parliament with a fire extinguisher in 2023. He was a presidential candidate who won more than 6% of the votes in the first round of the election earlier this year.

Speaking to Poland’s Wnet radio on Thursday, Braun said that “ritual murder is a fact, and such a thing as Auschwitz with its gas chambers is unfortunately a fake,” news agency PAP reported. The reporter then ended the interview.

Some Christians in medieval Europe believed that Jews murdered Christians to use their blood for ritual purposes, something which historians say has no basis in Jewish religious law or historical fact and instead reflected anti-Jewish hostility in Christian Europe.

A spokesperson for the Warsaw district prosecutor’s office, Piotr Antoni Skiba, said prosecutors were conducting a preliminary investigation into Braun’s potential denial of Nazi crimes.