Leader of the "Greens" in Britain claimed his family fled the Nazis. Documents prove otherwise

Zak Polanski, leader of the Green Party in Britain, claimed his family fled the Nazis, but historical records reveal his family settled in Britain decades before the war. The party refuses to explain the contradiction and accuses critics of attempting to discredit the only Jewish leader of a political party in Britain.

Zak Polanski, leader of the Green Party in Britain, is at the center of a public storm after historical records disproved his story about his ancestors fleeing the Nazis. In his keynote speech at the party conference in Bournemouth last year, Polanski said his Jewish ancestors fled pogroms in Latvia and Ukraine, from where they arrived in Nazi-occupied Poland, and eventually escaped to England. However, a review of public records of births, marriages, and censuses from 1891 and 1901 revealed that his family settled in Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Polanski repeated the story of fleeing the Nazis on several occasions, including on the podcast "The Rest Is Politics" and the BBC program "Question Time." The Daily Mail reported that the mystery deepened when Polanski himself admitted on a podcast that his great-grandparents came to Britain "long before World War II." The Green Party refused to explain the contradiction, and a party spokesperson said it was an "attempt to discredit the only Jewish leader of a political party in Britain." The storm coincides with the opening of the party's 2026 conference in Brighton, less than a week before Polanski stands for election to Parliament. On Sunday, the party approved a explosive motion stating that Zionism is a form of racism, following which Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar banned Polanski from entering Israel. It was also revealed that party member Lubna Spitan, who led the motion, is a close associate of an Al-Qaeda terrorist.