This Is Why Israel And Poland Are Fighting About The Holocaust
Polish nationalists say anti-Semitism has been used to shame Poland, but historians and Jewish leaders say they’re trying to censor the truth about the Holocaust. Poland infuriated Israel ahead of last weekend's Holocaust Remembrance Day when its Parliament took up a bill to make it a crime to blame Poland for the Holocaust. The legislation would punish people with up to three years in prison for statements that “publicly and against the facts ascribe responsibility or co-responsibility for the crimes perpetrated by the Third German Reich to the Polish nation or the Polish state.” But it doesn't stop there. The bill's full text says it would broadly make it a crime to accuse the Polish state of "other crimes against peace and humanity, or war crimes," or to "grossly [diminish] the responsibility of actual perpetrators" of such crimes. It has passed Poland's lower house, and must still be passed by the upper house and signed by the president to ...