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Israeli leaders have angrily criticised pending legislation in Poland that would outlaw blaming Poles for the crimes of the Holocaust, with some accusing the Polish government of outright denial.
Key points:
- The bill outlaws using phrases like "Polish death camps"
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Poland is "denying history"
- The Prime Minister's comments coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day
As the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the proposed law "baseless" and ordered his country's ambassador to Poland to meet with Polish leaders to express his strong opposition.
"One cannot change history, and the Holocaust cannot be denied," he said.
The lower house of the Polish Parliament on Friday passed the bill, which prescribes prison time for using phrases such as "Polish death camps" to refer to the killing sites Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II.
Many Poles fear such phrasing makes some people incorrectly conclude that Poles had a role in running the camps.
But critics say the legislation could have a chilling effect on debating history, harming freedom of expression and opening a window to Holocaust denial.
The bill still needs approval from Poland's Senate and president.
It marks a dramatic step by the country's current nationalist Government to target anyone who tries to undermine its official stance that Poles only were heroes during the war, not Nazi collaborators who committed heinous crimes.
At Auschwitz on Saturday evening, Israel's ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, abandoned a prepared speech to criticise the bill, saying that "everyone in Israel was revolted at this news".
In Israel, which was established three years after the Holocaust and is home to the world's largest community of survivors, the legislation provoked outrage.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, noting that exactly 73 years had passed since the Auschwitz death camp on Polish soil was liberated, cited the words of a former Polish president about how history could not be faked and the truth could not be hidden.
"The Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the entire world must ensure that the Holocaust is recognised for its horrors and atrocities," Mr Rivlin said.
"Also among the Polish people, there were those who aided the Nazis in their crimes. Every crime, every offense, must be condemned. They must be examined and revealed."
Holocaust survivor's son hits out at Polish Embassy
Today's Poles have been raised on stories of their people's wartime suffering and heroism.
Many react viscerally when confronted with the growing body of scholarship about Polish involvement in the killing of Jews.
In a sign of the sensitivities on both sides, Yair Lapid, head of Israel's centrist Yesh Atid party and the son of a survivor, got into a heated Twitter spat Saturday with the Polish Embassy in Israel.
"I utterly condemn the new Polish law which tries to deny Polish complicity in the Holocaust. It was conceived in Germany but hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered without ever meeting a German soldier. There were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that," Mr Lapid wrote.
That sparked the Embassy to respond: "Your unsupportable claims show how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel."
"My grandmother was murdered in Poland by Germans and Poles," Mr Lapid responded.
"I don't need Holocaust education from you. We live with the consequences every day in our collective memory. Your embassy should offer an immediate apology."
To which the embassy retorted: "Shameless."
During the 73rd anniversary of Auschwitz concentration camp's liberation at the end of World War II, 60 survivors laid wreaths in front of the Death Wall in memory of the victims,
They said the camp is a lifetime nightmare.
AP
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, world-war-2, poland, israel
First posted