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Poland amends controversial Holocaust law
WARSAW, June 27, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Poland on Wednesday 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 right-wing dominated lower house of parliament voted
388 in favour of the amendment, with 25 against and five abstentions.
The Senate is expected to adopt the amendment later on Wednesday before it
is signed into law by the president.
Poland’s right-wing Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki proposed the changes
out of the blue earlier on Wednesday, 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.
Poland’s government faced international criticism over the law, which it
insists was meant to protect Poland from false accusations of complicity in
the Holocaust.
Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II, losing six million of
its citizens, including three million Jews.
BSS/AFP/RY/1655 hrs