Israel also summoned Poland’s deputy ambassador to express its outrage.<\/b>
\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his country could not tolerate a proposed law in Poland that distances Warsaw from responsibility for the Holocaust. Israel also summoned Poland’s deputy ambassador to express its outrage.
At a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israel has \u00ab\u00a0no tolerance for the distortion of the truth, the rewriting of history and the denial of the Holocaust.\u00a0\u00bb
The bill that passed the lower house of Poland’s parliament on Friday bans the use of the term \u00ab\u00a0Polish death camp\u00a0\u00bb to refer to concentration camps built by the Nazis on Polish soil. It also places fines on certain mentions of Polish complicity in the Holocaust.
\u00ab\u00a0We have had enough of Poland and Poles being blamed for German crimes,\u00a0\u00bb said Beata Mazurek of the ruling Law and Justice party, defending the bill, which still has to pass the Senate and be signed by the president before it becomes law.
The bill hits at Poland’s fight for its own legacy. The narrative put forward by Poland’s nationalist conservative government posits that Poland was only a victim of Nazi terrorism and acted heroically under horrible circumstances. However, most historians agree that the truth is more complicated, and many Poles collaborated with the occupying forces and committed terrible crimes.
Israel has criticized the bill for its potential to \u00ab\u00a0harm freedom of research, as well as prevent discussion of the historical message and legacy of World War II,\u00a0\u00bb and taken issue with the timing, coming the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Deputy Ambassador to Israel Piotr Kozlowski rejected the idea that his government was trying to \u00ab\u00a0whitewash\u00a0\u00bb history.
\u00ab\u00a0It is to safeguard it, to safeguard the truth about the Holocaust and to prevent its distortion,\u00a0\u00bb he told reporters after his meeting at the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In the wake of the criticism, Polish President Andrzej Duda said he would send a top policy adviser to meet with Israeli diplomats on Monday and discuss the bill’s wording.
This article was originally published on DW.com. Its content is separate from USA TODAY.<\/p>\n

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