Story here, from The Washington Post.

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's president celebrated the start of Hanukkah by visiting Warsaw's main synagogue Sunday, a gesture the city's Jewish community greeted as a historic step in its revival.

Lech Kaczynski's visit marked the first time the head of state has attended a religious service at a synagogue in Poland, whose Jewish population was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust and later suffered from communist-era repression.


Pre-WW2 Poland had a huge Jewish population, and huge anti-semitism among Poles. Simon Wiesenthal recounts his high school experience:

Two years before the outbreak of war the Radical elements had invented a "day without Jews," whereby they hoped to reduce the number of Jewish academics, to interfere with their studies and make it impossible for them to take examinations. On these feast days there assembled inside the gates of the High Schools a crowd of fraternity students wearing ribbons inscribed "the day without the Jews." It always coincided with examination day. The "day without the Jews" was thus a movable festival, and as the campus of the Technical High School was ex-territorial, the police were not allowed to interfere except by express request of the Rector. Such requests were rarely made. Although the Radicals formed a mere 20 percent of the students, this minority reigned because of the cowardice and laziness of the majority. The great mass of the students were unconcerned about the Jews or indeed about order and justice. They were not willing to expose themselves, they lacked willpower, they were wrapped up in their own problems, completely indifferent to the fate of Jewish students.
. . . In the side streets ambulances waited patiently and they had plenty to do on examination days. The police too waited to prevent violence from spreading outside the campus. . . .


Given this historical context, the visit to the synagogue by Poland's president is a very welcome step.

The attempt at a Final Solution was possible only because there existed in the populations conquered by the Nazis an embedded anti-semitism. There never were enough Nazis to carry out the Final Solution without help. In conquered nations where the Gentile population refused to round up Jews, such as Denmark, the Nazis were unable to put their plans into effect.