Poland’s Holocaust law causes rift
• Israel, US and Ukraine slam president’s decision to sign bill that sets fines for anyone who identifies German death camps as Polish
Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has signed into law a controversial Holocaust bill intended to safeguard his country’s image abroad but which has instead sparked tensions with Israel, the US and Ukraine.
Duda also said on Tuesday he would send the law to the Constitutional Tribunal to rule on whether it conforms with constitutional guarantees on freedom of speech.
The law sets fines or a maximum three-year jail term for anyone who erroneously describes Nazi German death camps such as AuschwitzBirkenau as being Polish, simply due to their geographical location. Israel, however, has expressed concern that the legislation could lead to Holocaust survivors being prosecuted for their testimony should it concern the involvement of individual Poles for allegedly killing or giving up Jews to the Germans.
“I have decided to sign the law but also to send it to the Constitutional Tribunal,” Duda told reporters in Warsaw.
He said his decision “preserves the interests of Poland, our dignity and the historical truth” and “takes into account the sensitivity of those for whom the question of historical memory of the Holocaust remains exceptionally important, especially those who have survived and who, as long as they can, should tell the world about this past and their experience”.
The legislation has triggered an unprecedented diplomatic row with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared last week that “we have no tolerance for the distortion of the truth and rewriting history or denying the Holocaust”.
His Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, described the tensions as a “temporary weakening of relations with Israel and the USA” but added that he hoped for an improvement after Poland explained “our position”.
Poland’s Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz insisted on Monday that Netanyahu’s criticism of the legislation was “due to a misunderstanding”.
“I think it’s a problem of interpretation, of over-interpretation on the Israeli side,” he said, adding that Poland was open to backing a joint declaration with Israel clarifying the legislation.
Czaputowicz added that it was not the case that Poland was not “open to the postulates of Israel, the United States and other countries”.
The US state department warned last week that the bill could have “repercussions” on “Poland’s strategic interests and relationships — including with the United States and Israel”.
Israel’s ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, told the commercial Radio Zet station on Monday that after Poland’s senate adopted the bill she “had signals” she may be withdrawn but “now I don’t know”.
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the weekend “there is not the slightest doubt about who is responsible for the extermination camps, who made them work to kill millions of European Jews: namely the Germans”.
“It was our country that organised these mass murders and no one else. The existence of certain collaborators does not change anything,” Gabriel said. “Poland can be certain that any distortion of history such as the notion of ‘Polish concentration camps’ will be clearly rejected and firmly condemned.”
Ukraine has also objected to the law, with President Petro Poroshenko protesting against “absolutely biased and categorically unacceptable” articles that allow for the prosecution of anyone denying the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists between 1925 and 1950.