Антони Мачеревич: Польша саяхатшысы және тарихшысы

Polish politician and historian

Antoni Macierewicz (; born 3 August 1948) is a Polish politician and the former Minister of National Defence. He previously served as the Minister of Internal Affairs, Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service, and Minister of State in the Ministry of National Defence. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Macierewicz was one of the founders in 1976 of the Workers' Defense Committee, a major anti communist opposition organization that was a forerunner of Solidarity. During the 1980s Macierewicz directed the Centre for Social Research of Solidarity and was one of the trade union's key advisors. A former political prisoner, he escaped from incarceration and was in hiding until 1984, directing work and issuing underground publications. Macierewicz served as the Minister of Internal Affairs from 1991 to 1992, the Head of the Military Counterintelligence Service from 2006 to 2007, and the Minister of National Defence from 2015 to 2018. He is currently in his sixth term in the Parliament of Poland, where he represents the Piotrków Trybunalski district, and was a Member of the European Parliament. He is also the Deputy Leader of Law and Justice, the largest party in the Parliament of Poland.

Macierewicz was born in Warsaw on 3 August 1948. He is the youngest of three children of Zdzisław and Maria Macierewicz, both scientists. His father, a noted researcher in chemistry, a soldier in the Home Army during World War II, and a member of the Christian democratic Labor Party, committed suicide in 1949.

Following Macierewicz's designation as Minister of National Defence, he faced allegations of anti Semitism and protests by the Anti Defamation League. In 1996, Macierewicz wrote that Poles did not murder Jews in the Kielce pogrom in 1946. In 2001, Macierewicz wrote: "Is the hubbub surrounding Jedwabne intended to eclipse the responsibility of Jews for Communism and the Soviet occupation?" The statement was condemned by the Jewish community in Poland. According to, Krzysztof Izdebski, the Chairman of the Council of The Union of Jewish Communities, Macierewicz apologized for the statement and "accepts with no doubts that the Protocols is false" which was accepted by the council. Anna Chipczynska, the President of the Jewish Community of Warsaw, said, "the latest statement by Mr. Macierewicz denouncing all forms of anti Semitism could be a positive signal that the new Polish government will stand strongly against manifestations of hatred toward Jews." In July 2016, Antoni Macierewicz said that the "real enemy", Russia, shares responsibility for the massacres of Poles and Jews in German occupied Volhynia and Eastern Galicia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Macierewicz's claim was also criticized by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia. In the comical webseries The Chairman's Ear (2017), implicit references are made to an alleged homosexual relationship between "Minister of War" Antoni and a younger man. This pun refers to Macierewicz's close ties with the much younger politician Bartłomiej Misiewicz (born in 1990).