The Times: screenshot
The letter of complaint was sent to the UK daily in response to columnist Giles Coren's “humorous” piece “Today I am make first column in Polski.”
Coren wrote the offending article after census statistics revealed that Polish is the second most widely spoken language in England and Wales.
Writing in broken English reminiscent of comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen's Kazakhstani character Borat, Cohen stated that “in Poland man who not like Jews simple throw them down well with pitchfork still alive, drink vodka, big laugh ha ha, then is fill in concrete and dance on grave.”
However, in a joint letter signed by Polish authorities including the Federation of Poles in Great Britain and the Polish Social and Cultural Association, the article was described as “sickening and saddening.”
The signatories argued that Cohen “has spectacularly failed to be amusing and succeeded only in being insulting.
“As our British friends and colleagues already know, we are not the animals Mr Coren makes us out to be,” they stressed.
The signatories have also submitted a copy of the letter to the UK's Press Complaints Commission (PCC).
Coren noted in his article that his Polish-Jewish ancestors emigrated to Britain in 1903 from the whereabouts of Plonsk (a city that was then part of Russian-occupied Poland).
“So today I am celebrate Polish is become number two language entire of England,” the author explained.
Coren also referred to examples of English anti-Semitism that he had witnessed, citing an incident involving a Jewish school colleague who had apparently been humiliated for being “fat and Jewish.”
It is the second time that Coren has offended the Polish community in the UK, writing in The Times in 2008 that Polish immigrants should “clear off” if they felt "that England is not the land of milk and honey it appeared to be.”
He later argued that Poles “remain in denial about their responsibility for the Holocaust,” also noting the post-war Kielce pogrom of 1946, in which Polish civilians killed at least 40 Jews. (nh)