Poland’s government will water down a controversial Holocaust law and remove parts that imposed jail terms on anyone who suggested the nation was complicit in Nazi crimes, six months after its approval in parliament sparked international outcry, the Associated Press reported.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Wednesday last week that the law will be amended so violators will not be imprisoned. Both houses of Parliament have voted to support the changes. Polish President Andrzej Duda then signed the changes into law.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the move, saying in a statement that he was pleased Poland rescinded provisions that “caused a storm and consternation in Israel and among the international community.”
The original law imposed jail sentences of up to three years for anyone who used the phrase “Polish death camps” or suggested “publicly and against the facts” that the Polish nation or state was complicit in Nazi Germany’s war crimes.
The legislation sparked an intense diplomatic crisis between Israel and Poland and led to an outpouring of anti-Semitic rhetoric in the country, as nationalist media sought to portray Poland as under attack from foreign powers and Jewish advocacy groups.
In May, officials at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum described how they were subjected to a wave of “hate, fake news and manipulations” as a result of the controversial Holocaust law.
The law drew international condemnation. “This draft legislation could undermine free speech and academic discourse,” the U.S. Department of State said in a statement before the bill passed. “We are also concerned about the repercussions this draft legislation, if enacted, could have on Poland’s strategic interests and relationships ― including with the United States and Israel.”
Although the unexpected U-turn has been welcomed by Jewish groups, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center, some critics argue that Poland has not gone far enough and the bill should be abandoned altogether.
[Photo: Paul Arps / Flickr ]