Right-wing Polish politician puts kippah on head of rival during TV debate

A far-right Polish politician placed a kippah on the head of a senior government official during a televised debate.

Konrad Berkowicz, 35, placed the Jewish skullcap on the head of Anna Krupka, a state secretary for sports and culture and lawmaker for the ruling right-wing Law and Justice Party, on Saturday during a debate in Kielce, a southern city in Poland that was the site of an infamous pogrom of Polish Jews by their non-Jewish neighbours in 1946.

Krupka kept speaking for several minutes while wearing the object that Berkowicz, a senior member of the Korwin far-right party, placed on her head without her noticing.

The action was taken to be intended as an insult for Krupka.

Separately, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki reiterated his government’s objection to offering what he called “damages” over issues that go back to World War II.

“If today anyone says that Poland has to pay damages to anyone, then we disagree and will continue to do so and it will not happen as long as the country is ruled by Law and Justice,” Morawiecki said during a party event in Lodz on Friday.

“If there were such a terrible injustice, inverting torturer and victim, it would contradict any elementary principle of international law. This would also be Hitler’s posthumous victory, which is why we will never allow it,” Morawiecki added.

Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom and Jewish groups have protested Poland’s failure to pass laws offering restitution for private-owned property lost to Jews in the Holocaust.

Watch the video of the incident here: