Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

‘Blood Libel’ Church Fresco Sparks Furor in Poland City of Poznan

The leader of Poznan’s Jewish community has accused Catholic clergymen of perpetuating a local blood libel.

Alicja Kobus, chairwoman of the western city’s Jewish community, made the accusation on Jan. 26 in an interview with the Gazeta Wyborcza daily about a fresco which depicts an anti-Semitic blood libel and which adorns Poznan’s Sacred Blood of Christ cathedral.

The fresco, which was painted by the 17th-century Franciscan monk Adam Swach, depicts a local blood libel which said Jews desecrated communion bread before its consumption by Christians. The men are seen sticking pins in the bread as a demon watches them approvingly.

Following queries about the fresco from journalists, the church recently placed a sign explaining that the scene is a blood libel. But the sign, the daily reported, was placed on a different floor of the cathedral, several hundreds of yards away from the fresco, which is located on the upper floor, near the altar and where mass is usually held.

“The board should hang where everyone can see it,” Kobus said. “Concealing such things is a sad occurrence and it looks like someone is trying to play hide and seek.”

The rector of the Sacred Blood of Christ cathedral, Leszek Wilczynski, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily that the sign was placed on the lower floor because the upper floor walls had no space. “Please don’t look for sensations, the fresco is not the main issue in this holy place,” he said.

On Jan. 17, a cathedral in Sandomierz displayed a painting of Jews killing Christian children that had previously been covered up for being too offensive. A sign affixed next to the painting said the scene depicted was a falsehood.

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/01/29/news-opinion/world/anti-semitic-fresco-causes-uproar-in-poland#ixzz2rmpoxAlx

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.