When Zack Polanski told the heart-rending tale of his ancestors fleeing the Nazis, it earned him applause at last year’s Green Party conference.
But the Holocaust story has raised questions after family history research found his grandparents were all born in Britain long before the Second World War.
On Thursday, Mr Polanski did nothing to clear up the mystery when the Greens declined to answer a request to explain the powerful yet puzzling line in his keynote speech.
Speaking on the podium in Bournemouth one year ago, the newly-installed party leader spoke proudly of his Jewish heritage, saying: ‘I am literally the product of migration. It’s why defending migrants matters so much to me.’
His Jewish ancestry was ‘confusing and muddling’ because ‘we were constantly on the run’, he said, but went on: ‘From what I can gather, my ancestors started in Latvia in a Jewish town, but they fled because of Pogroms.
‘They fled to Ukraine where they faced more Pogroms. Then they ended up in Poland where they faced the Nazis. Then they arrived in England and met antisemitism here too.’
Public records of births, marriages and deaths confirm Mr Polanski’s great and great-great-grandparents came from Latvia and Russia.
But historical Census records from 1891, 1901 and other public sources suggest they settled in the UK in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
His recent ancestors were all in Britain years before the Second World War, raising the question of which of them fled the Nazis.
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Zack Polanski delivering his speech to the Green Party’s conference in Bournemouth in October 2025
His parents were born in Manchester, and his four grandparents all come from the north of England too.
On his father’s side, Benny was born in 1916 in Manchester and Ethel in 1925 in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. On his mother’s side, grandfather Maurice was born in 1931 in Manchester and grandmother Shirley in 1934 in nearby Heywood.
After the success of his 2025 conference speech, Mr Polanski repeated his Holocaust story in numerous media interviews.
He told podcast The Rest Is Politics on December 1 last year that ‘my ancestry’ involved fleeing to Ukraine, ‘then fleeing the Nazis and then end up in the UK’. The narrative was also repeated in newspaper interviews with Mr Polanski.
Appearing on the panel of a BBC Question Time immigration special on December 4, he told the studio audience: ‘This is personal to me,’ adding: ‘My great-grandparents lived in Latvia. They’re Jewish and we fled because of Pogroms.
‘We ended up in Ukraine. We fled again; more Pogroms. Then in Nazi-occupied Poland. Then fled again. And this is what people have done throughout history.’
The story about the Pogroms makes sense, but the Holocaust element is confusing because it is unclear why his ancestors would have fled Nazi-occupied Poland if they had been born in Britain before Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
When the Daily Mail asked the Green Party if there was some explanation, it declined to answer, saying the question itself was ‘an attempt to discredit him’.
Last month, Mr Polanski stated in a podcast with political interviewer Iain Dale that ‘my great-grandparents actually came here way before the Second World War’, deepening the mystery of why he said his ancestors had fled the Nazis.
Almost certainly, in common with all Jewish families, there will have been members of Mr Polanski’s wider family who were persecuted in the Holocaust. But it is unclear who he was referring to when he told the story of his ancestors fleeing the Nazis.
The Mail showed the Green Party the key elements of the family tree and asked for help in explaining the riddle.
A party spokesman responded: ‘Jewish family history is often confusing and muddled, as Zack has acknowledged.
‘It’s astonishing that the only current Jewish leader of a British political party is having his family history raked over by the press in an attempt to discredit him.’
Mr Polanski, 43, has long been proud of his Jewish background. His paternal grandfather anglicised the family name to Paulden, and the Green Party leader was born David Paulden in 1982.
He changed his surname back to Mr Polanski to honour his heritage (although he later found out the original name was spelt Polinsky; and he changed his first name to Zack to distance himself from a disliked step-father called David).
Mr Polanski explained the name changes in the Iain Dale podcast by saying: ‘I was told that my name had been changed because of the Second World War and to evade the Nazis.
‘And I wanted to reclaim my name so I could take pride in my Jewish identity rather than feeling like I needed to hide.
‘The bit that was really interesting, that I found out a few years later, though, was my great-grandparents actually came here way before the Second World War.
‘And the reason why they changed their name was actually to evade anti-Semitism in the UK. And that felt even more poignant at that time once I found out.’
The Greens’ 2026 conference opens in Brighton on Friday, with Mr Polanski vowing it will be ‘our biggest and most exciting ever’. He said: ‘We have shown that when Greens win, the Labour government listens – whether that’s finally banning trade with illegal settlements or starting to open safe routes for refugees. Our work is just beginning.’
It is less than a week before the by-election in which Mr Polanski is fighting to become an MP. He is standing as the Green Party candidate in Sir Keir Starmer’s old seat of Holborn and St Pancras in north London.
The seat has been held by Labour since it was created in 1983, but the Greens are confident they have a real chance of taking it.
It is not the first time Mr Polanski’s comments have caused confusion. Earlier this year he apologised for an ‘unintentional mistake’ over not paying council tax on a houseboat in east London.
The London Assembly member – paid almost £66,500 a year by taxpayers – was cleared after an investigation by the Greater London Authority into his living arrangements resulting from ‘financial hardship’. He pledged to immediately ‘take steps to pay any council tax’ he owed.
In May, he admitted he had not voted in the local elections, despite having publicly told Hackney’s Green candidate ‘you have my vote’ and his spokesman saying he had used a postal vote. The Greens said there had been some ‘miscommunication’ and that Mr Polanski was not registered to vote.
