The visit to Poland by the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, undertaken to explore his wife’s family roots, was described by the website JewishNews. co. uk. However, an unfortunate passage in the article sparked a wave of criticism on social media. According to the portal, the Jewish family had fled Poland before 1929 because Adolf Hitler had come to power.
The Starmers travelled to sites connected with Lady Victoria’s Polish-Jewish heritage, including villages in the Mazovian and Greater Poland regions where earlier generations of her family once lived. For the couple, the trip was an opportunity to share with their children a tangible link to their past, including the cultural and religious traditions that shape their household today.
Victoria’s father, Bernard, born in 1929, came from a family of Jewish heritage that left Poland for England during the First World War. As incorrectly reported by JewishNews.co.uk, the family had supposedly escaped Nazism and Adolf Hitler’s rule. It is, however, known that Victoria’s father was born in 1929, long before the German Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.
The discrepancy prompted criticism online, with commentators highlighting the need for careful historical context, particularly in stories touching upon Jewish history and the Holocaust.
Starmer, who does not himself have Jewish roots, has repeatedly stressed in interviews how important it is for him to preserve traditions and to make his children aware of their heritage. He has said that their two children are being brought up in their mother’s faith and that, although he is an atheist, he accompanies them to synagogue relatively often and Jewish traditions are observed in their home.
As reported by the media, the Starmer family visited a small town near Warsaw, as well as Budzisław Stary in Koło County in Greater Poland, where Victoria’s grandparents lived during the 1920s. According to local police in Koło, the visit was private and lasted four hours. The route and stopping points were secured jointly by police officers and the State Protection Service.
Both Starmer and his wife have previously visited the Auschwitz concentration camp, so the historical realities of Adolf Hitler’s aggression against Poland are well known within the family. The journey to Poland enabled the Starmers to confront family stories with the actual places connected to their past.
The rather silent and private trip reignited discussion about historical literacy and the responsibility of media outlets to present complex history narratives with accuracy and care.
Photo: X/@europa
Tomasz Modrzejewski
