Using history to defend honour

Polish law criminalizing some Holocaust speech takes effect

A Polish law that makes it a crime to falsely accuse the Polish nation of crimes committed by Nazi Germany took effect Thursday, part of a wider effort by nationalist authorities to use history to defend the country’s honour and pride.

For years Polish officials have struggled to fight phrases like “Polish death camps” that are sometimes used abroad to refer to Auschwitz and other death camps that Nazi Germany built and operated on occupied Polish territory during the Second World War.

Some Poles fear that as the war grows more distant, new generations will mistakenly believe that Poles were the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

The law, however, has sparked a crisis with Israel, where Holocaust survivors and officials fear its true aim is to repress research and debate about Poles who killed Jews during the Second World War.

Polish and Israeli representatives met Thursday in Jerusalem to resolve a standoff over the law.

“We must make sure that historical truths are preserved and that there be no restriction on the freedom of research and speech,” Yuval Rotem, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and head of Israel’s team, told reporters.

Rotem also expressed concerns about a spike in anti-Semitism in Poland that has erupted amid the dispute with Israel, saying that would be addressed during the talks, as well.

Polish team leader Bartosz Cichocki, a deputy foreign minister, said his side was committed to fighting anti-Semitism and to “defend and promote truth, freedom of research, artistic performance and public debate.”

“We are here open and ready to answer all the questions and clarify whatever is left to be clarified with regard to the anti-defamation law,” Cichocki said.

Poland’s president signed the law last month but also sent it to the constitutional court for review. Polish officials have said no criminal charges will be brought until the court has made its ruling, expected in several weeks.

But prosecutors are already looking for cases where Poland is defamed over its wartime activities.

Critics of the law argue it is so broad and vaguely worded that it could be abused.

A prominent Jewish journalist, Konstanty Gebert, challenged prosecutors with an article Thursday in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily that he said “may constitute a crime” under the new law.

AP PHOTO Flowers are placed at the memorial to Janusz Korczak, who died in the gas chamber of the Treblinka Nazi German death camp in 1942, together with the children of the Jewish orphanage that he ran in the Warsaw Ghetto, at the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw,...