Fulop also called the 62-year-old a "white nationalist + holocaust denier" who "has zero credibility" in a Thursday tweet. His accusations came after the Polish politician said Wednesday that the proposed permanent removal of Jersey City's Katyń memorial, commemorating the deaths of Polish servicemembers and civilians during World War II, was "scandalous and very unpleasant for us."
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) May 3, 2018
The international spate began three days after The Jersey Journal reported on Monday that the memorial might be removed from the city's Exchange Place plaza after it undergoes a renovation.
The bronze statue, which was created by artist Andrzej Pitynski to commemorate the deaths of more than 22,000 Polish civilians and military officers who were killed in the Katyń forest in 1940, has been in the park since 1991.
Responding to the possibility of the statue being removed, Pitynski told the paper in an article published Thursday that he was "pissed off" and that it should simply stay at the location it's been at for the last 27 years.
Pitynski later called Mack-Cali CEO Mike DeMarco, who is leading the renovation at the plaza, a "schmuck."
"Some businessman with big money comes and he tries to dictate… who this f***ing guy is? The hell with him," he told the Journal.
DeMarco had previously told the publication that the statue was "gruesome" and that it wasn't appropriate "for a major metropolitan area."
"It's a little gruesome… I can't imagine how many mothers go by and have to explain it to their children," he said.
Chiming in on the matter, fellow New Jersey mayor Jimmy Davis, who represents the city of Bayonne, told the outlet that he would take the memorial if Jersey City no longer wants it.
"As mayor I would be proud to have it at one of our many of our wonderful parks, maybe at Rutkowski Park, which is named in honor of one of Bayonne's most prominent Polish-American leaders," Davis said in a statement from his spokesman.
Though Karczewski is now looking into legal action, Fulop fired off a tweet late Thursday saying that "he's no longer interested in differences" with the official. He also wrote that he's happy "[Karczewski] engaged me" even though "this guy is an asshole."
Following Poland's early 2018 law outlawing the term "Polish death camps," Karczewski issued a letter to Polish citizens living abroad to document "all manifestations of anti-Polonism, expressions and opinions that harm us" and submit their findings to Polish diplomatic missions.Jewish groups and the state of Israel reacted with outrage to the new law, calling it an attempt to whitewash the participation of Polish nationals in Nazi atrocities.
