Israel and Poland in talks to resolve conflict over Holocaust blame law

ISRAELI and Polish politicians are meeting in Jerusalem in an attempt to end a bitter controversy over a Holocaust law in Poland regarded by its critics as an attempt to absolve Poles of crimes committed against Jews during the Second World War.

The law makes it a crime to attribute blame to the Polish state for crimes committed by the Third Reich. The storm over the law, which came into force yesterday, has shredded oncestrong diplomatic relations.

It has also led to a number of lurid anti-semitic comments in the Polish media, and historically inaccurate claims by some Jews that Poles instigated a “Polish holocaust”. “I hope we have come to the end of the emotional and mutual accusations we have witnessed over the past few weeks,” said Bartosz Cichocki, Poland’s deputy foreign affairs minister. “We’ve seen prejudice, a lack of knowledge and disrespect for Poland and Polish history.”

He also tweeted that he welcomed “this opportunity to meet PM [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s team and to launch a legal-historical dialogue on Holocaust, World War Two related issues, driven by mutual desire to defend and promote truth, freedom of research, artistic performance, public debate”.

Sitting down for talks, Israel appeared to put aside frustration stemming from the Polish government pushing ahead with the law by stressing the need for dialogue. “Israel and Poland enjoy strong political bilateral ties, based on common values,” said Yuval Rotem, Israel’s foreign ministry director general. But he added that “preserving the memory of the Holocaust is a matter beyond the bilateral relationship between Israel and Poland”.

Moshe Arens, a leading member of Likud, Israel’s ruling party, and a former defence minister, told Rzeczpospolita, the Polish newspaper, that people knew Poles had helped Jews during the war. “But at the same time there were also Poles who helped the Germans in exterminating Jews, ” he added.