“It is with outrage and a great deal of anxiety that we have received the news about events on April 19 in Pruchnik [in the south-east of Poland]. An apparent 17th-century ritual involving beating of an effigy of a Jew said to symbolise Judas. The ceremony accompanied by aggressive cries of the participants can only serve to consolidate the centuries-old anti-Semitic folklore and igniting the flame of xenophobic hatred.”

The Open Republic’s  letter to the local parish priest, to  the mayor of Pruchnik and  the heads of all local educational establishments, was signed by the Head of Programme Board, Paula Sawicka and by the Association’s Chair, Marek Gumkowski