Outcry over Poland’s law which rewrites WWII history, and bans challenges to the government’s version

Of the 2.8 million Jews killed, more than 200,000 Jews were killed by Poles early on in the war, in areas of Poland not yet under German occupation (among the Jews killed by Poles: The family of Yitzhak Shamir, who served as Israel’s prime minster in 1983-84 and 1986-92). After the Nazis completed their occupation of Poland and began to move Jews into ghettos, many Poles were happy to help. Eager to seize Jewish property, Poles in big cities, small towns, and villages, betrayed their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis. The Jews were forced into the crowded ghettos, and were then sent to the extermination camps.

In many parts of Poland, the campaign to turn Jews over to the Nazis was actively supported by the Catholic Church.

After the Allied defeated Nazi Germany, some of the Jewish survivors tried to go back to their homes, only to be met with violent hostility by their former neighbors. Historians estimate that in 1945-46, between 1,000 and 2,000 Jews who returned from the Nazi camps were killed by Poles. One incident – the Kielce Pogrom on 4 July 1946 – made the headlines. After rumors swept through the small town that a Polish boy had been kidnapped by Jews but had managed to escape, and that other Polish children had been ritually murdered by Jews, the citizens of Kielce took matter into their hands, and attacked the Jewish Community Center in town, killing 42 and injuring more than 50.

Most Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust, and who were returned to Poland by the Red Army, preferred to migrate to other countries. Two waves of Jewish emigration, one in the late 1950s, the other ten years later, reduce the Jewish community in Poland to about 8,000.

There were tens of thousands of brave Poles who risked their lives to save Jews – and it was a huge risk, because the Nazis had a policy of executing both the hiding Jews and the sheltering family if they were discovered. Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum and research center, has recognized 26,513 Poles for saving Jews during the period of Nazi occupation – and 6,706 of them have been named Righteous Among the Nations for acts of extraordinary heroism in saving Jews from extermination.

It is telling that until the late 1970s, many of these brave Poles and their family members had asked Yad Vashem not to publicize their names for fear of retribution by other Poles – retribution, that is, for having save Jews.

Mark Weitzman, the director of government affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S.-based group that battles anti-Semitism, called the law “an obscene whitewashing” of history.

He said its wording could be used against Holocaust survivors talking about their personal experiences as well as researchers, teachers or anyone else documenting the Holocaust.

He urged Poland to “immediately terminate this law and put an end to all attempts to distort the history of the Holocaust for political purposes.”

Israel has criticized the bill for its potential to “harm freedom of research, as well as prevent discussion of the historical message and legacy of World War II,” and taken issue with the timing, coming the day before Monday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition party Yesh Atid, was particularly harsh in criticizing the new Polish law. Lapid, whose father survived the Holocaust, wrote in a Tweet message on Saturday: “I strongly condemn the new law that was passed in Poland, which attempts to deny the involvement of many Polish citizens in the Holocaust,” adding: “No Polish law will change history, Poland was complicit in the Holocaust. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered on its soil without them having met any German officer.”

Poland’s embassy in Israel hit back at Lapid, tweeting that his “unsupportable claims show how badly Holocaust education is needed, even here in Israel.” The intent of the Polish legislation, it said, “is not to ‘whitewash’ the past, but to protect the truth against such slander.”

To which Lapid retorted with outrage and a demand for an apology: “I am a son of a Holocaust survivor. My grandmother was murdered in Poland by Germans and Poles. I don’t need Holocaust education from you. We live with the consequences every day in our collective memory. Your embassy should offer an immediate apology.”

The tension with Poland undermines Netanyahu’s efforts to strengthen relationships with the four Visegrad countries – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. These four countries have been moving away from Western-style pluralist democracy (Hungarian leader Viktor Orban openly talks about being the champion of what he calls “illiberal democracy,” which emphasizes ethno-nationalism and restricts the rights of ethnic and religious minorities), and they share an antipathy toward Islam and Muslim immigrants.

On Sunday evening, the Israeli and Polish government said they would open talks about the new law.

“The two agreed that teams from the two countries would open an immediate dialogue in order to try to reach understandings regarding the legislation,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

Lapid immediately criticized the government’s willingness to negotiate with the Polish government over the wording of the law. “We don’t negotiate over the memory of the deceased,” Lapid told fellow party lawmakers at the weekly faction meeting at the Knesset. “This law needs to be buried in the Polish ground, which is saturated with the blood of Jews.”

Lapid says that instead of negotiating, “Israel needs to tell Poland one thing: If this law passes you will need to prosecute us.” The Yesh Atid leader adds that it was “not by chance” that most of the concentration camps were in Poland and Israel must not shy away from speaking the truth.