Today’s news round up in Poland
Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.
TVPInfo.pl – The state-owned TV news channel quoted a letter by Poland's President Andrzej Duda published by the 'Polska Metropolia Warszawska' newspaper. The letter marked the National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German occupation. In the letter, Duda commemorated Poles who risked their lives to save Jews in Poland during the Second World War. "Aid given by Poles to Jews persecuted by German Holocaust perpetrators is an important part of our historical memory," the president wrote and pointed out that more than seven thousand Poles were awarded Righteous Among the Nations title for helping Jews during World War Two. The National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German occupation is an official public holiday to commemorate the day in 1944 when Nazi Germans executed an entire Polish family in the village of Markowa, southern Poland, for sheltering Jews. Wiktoria and Jozef Ulma hid eight Jews in their home during the war, for which in March 1944 they were executed together with their six children and the Jewish fugitives.
RMF24.pl – According to the biggest private radio broadcaster, Poland's ministry of foreign affairs is seeking a woman, a professional diplomat, to become the ambassador to Israel. RMF24 wrote that the new ambassador should not cause any controversies in both countries. Poland has not had an ambassador in Israel since 2021, when relations between the two countries were strained due to a property restitution law introduced by the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) which was labelled by Israel as "anti-Semitic". In 2022, direct talks between the presidents of Israel and Poland allowed the two countries to restore their ambassadors. In July 2022, Yacov Livne was approved as the Israeli ambassador to Poland.
Wyborcza.pl – According to daily's sources, Poczta Polska (the state-own postal operator) destroyed electoral ballots prepared for presidential elections in 2020. The election was originally scheduled for May 10, 2020, which caused an extreme political controversy due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The ruling party Law and Justice wanted to change the electoral rules and organise the election by postal voting only. Twenty-six million ballots were printed, but the change was rejected by Polish Senate. The total cost of printing the ballots and organising the voting by mail system was PLN 76 million (EUR 16.2 million). Since 2020, the ballots were kept by Poczta Polska in a warehouse in Lodz (central Poland) and, the newspaper wrote, then disappeared.
rp.pl – Polish companies are afraid of high energy prices, the daily Rzeczpospolita wrote. According to a research done by Dun & Bradstreet (an American company offering business data and analytical insights) in 18 countries, 60 percent of Polish managers said that energy prices were the biggest threat to their organisations. The average of all countries surveyed was 42 percent. Tomasz Starzyk, spokesperson for Dun & Bradstreet, said that mainly medium-sized Polish companies were concerned with the increases in electricity prices.
