WARSAW (EJP)--- Activists from the ultra-right-wing nationalist party, the National Rebirth of Poland (NOP) have been sending out Christmas cards by email to members of parliament that show a picture of Santa Claus giving the Nazi salute.

Below the illustration is a slogan calling for a "Free, Nationalist and Catholic" Poland.

According to NOP leader Adam Gmurczyk, the cards were partly-inspired by a recent media storm that began when film footage of members of the League of Polish Families’ (LPR) youth wing, the All Polish Youth (MW), was released showing them making ‘Heil Hitler’ gestures to a backdrop of Nazi symbols.

An outcry against Santa Claus figurines on sale in Rossman stores in Germany, which were also deemed to be making the straight-armed gesture, gave the NOP’s scheme extra impetus, its leader said, in that the organisation wished to mock "absurd political correctness".

Unambiguous sympathy

In Germany, 1,200 of the statuettes were destroyed by Rossman, although the shop’s management had protested that they were only pointing toward the sky.

Gmurczyk said that similar "hysteria" had accompanied the images of the All Polish Youth members, who were filmed at an outdoor party in Silesia in 2004 displaying unambiguous sympathy for Hitler’s ideas.

Behind them on the images – which were published by the daily newspaper ‘Dziennik’ – was a burning torch in the form of a swastika, as well as a Nazi flag alongside that of Poland’s.

The outcry led to calls by left-wing politicians for the All Polish Youth to be banned and also earned the organisation a sharp rebuke from Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose Law and Justice party (PiS) rules in coalition with the LPR.

"To see gestures of the type [on the film], given the six million people murdered [during World War II], is not only shocking in terms of this movement [MW] but also because these people are from this country," he said.

In mid-December, the pressure told and LPR leader Roman Giertych, announced that his party would be severing links to MW.

"In order for MW to get back to its roots and achieve the difficult task of bringing in a new generation, all the political activity of young people gathered around the LPR will, starting from today, be conducted exclusively by Youth Movement LPR," he said.

Fascism arrived

However, Gmurczyk was dismissive of the seriousness of MW’s behaviour in Silesia.
"It was enough for the All Polish Youth to make some gestures for journalists to think that Fascism had arrived," he said.

The NOP exists on the extreme fringes of Polish politics but is the oldest post-war nationalist party. It engaged in direct action against the Communist government until its downfall in 1989.

It exists as a legal party although it is openly anti-Semitic and was involved this year in a campaign to release convicted Holocaust denier David Irving from prison in Austria.

An Austrian court released him on probation on December 20.