Poland amends Holocaust law

– Poland yesterday amended a controversial Holocaust law that sparked outrage in Israel by imposing jail terms on anyone claiming the government was responsible for Nazi German war crimes.

The amendment removes fines or criminal penalties of up to three years in prison for anyone found guilty of ascribing Nazi crimes to the Polish nation or state.

Lawmakers in Poland’s rightwing dominated lower house of parliament voted 388 in favour of the amendment, with 25 against and five abstentions.

Warsaw

Poland’s right-wing Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki proposed the changes out of the blue early yesterday telling MPs that the criminal penalties had “stirred so much controversy they began to be counterproductive”.

The law, passed by Poland’s Senate in February, made it a criminal offense to ascribe “responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich”.

The main aim of the legislation was to prevent people from describing Nazi German death camps in Poland, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, as Polish.

But the jail terms included in the law ignited an unprecedented diplomatic row with Israel and demands for the recall of Israel’s ambassador in Warsaw.

Israel expressed deep concern that the legislation could open the door to prosecuting Holocaust survivors for their testimony should it concern the involvement of individual Poles for allegedly killing or giving up Jews to the Germans.

Israel also saw it as a bid to deny the participation of individual Poles in killing Jews or handing them over to the Nazis. –