Controversial Holocaust Bill Becomes Law in Poland

More than 70 years after the end of World War II, the Holocaust remains a testing strip as now as the holocaust bill becomes law with a signature of the Polish President Andrzej Duda on 6th February 2018, which will now ban people from accusing Poland of Holocaust atrocities committed by the Nazis and from referring to concentration camps as Polish death camps. Anyone convicted under the law will face fines or jail up to three years.

Germany operated six camps in Poland where Jews and others whom the Nazis considered enemies were killed. Poland is the location of several former concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 1 million people mostly the Jews were systematically killed in World War II. Over 3 million Jews who lived in Poland were killed by the Nazis, which accounts for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

The holocaust bill, which is turned into a law, international critics argue that it violates freedom of expression. Once in effect, it will essentially ban accusations that some Poles were complicit in Nazi crimes committed on Polish soil.

The enactment of the law by Poland has heightened tensions with the United States and Israel, which have criticized the decision of the Polish President.

The disappointment came with the reaction of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said, “the implementation of this law will badly affect the freedom of speech and academic inquiry, and we believe that open debate, education and scholarship are the best means of countering misleading speech”.

Andrzej Duda also announced Tuesday that he would ask the country’s Constitutional Tribunal to review the bill to check whether it complies with Poland’s fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech, potentially opening the door to amendments.

In Israel, the reaction was also fierce. “One cannot change history, and the Holocaust cannot be denied,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement last week.

Israel's Foreign Ministry too expressed hope that the constitutional review would prompt corrections and changes. But the law is expected to take effect before the tribunal would be able to issue any clarifications and the independence of the judges themselves.

“The constitutional tribunal in its current composition serves the goals of the ruling party. It is definitely not independent,” said Piotr Buras, head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Buras also added, “To the international audience, especially the U.S. and Israel, it signals that the Polish side sees the seriousness of the case and is perhaps ready for some changes. But it also signals to the ruling party’s most conservative domestic supporters that the government is not ready to back down.”

Polish officials however have emphasized that artistic and historical research work will not be affected by the ban. “But there is too much room for interpretation,” said Agnieszka Markiewicz, the director of the American Jewish Committee's central Europe office.

Markiewicz said that the American Jewish Committee agreed that individuals committed those crimes rather than the Polish state and that the term “Polish death camps,” was “unjust and untrue,” but she cautioned that an extensive ban on freedom of speech was the wrong way forward.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland in the year 1939, but like other European Countries there was no collaborationist Polish government. During the World War II, near about 6 million Polish citizens were killed, about half of them were Jews.

During the years of Nazi occupation between 1939 and 1945, Polish underground movements has resisted the Nazis.

But historians are of the view that it is not the full story of the history, as Poles were complicit in the Nazi crimes. Historians have pointed out incidents, such as a 1941 atrocity in the town of Jedwabne, in which Poles rounded up and killed their Jewish neighbors.

Alike historian, critics are also of the opinion that the legislation is intended to increase country’s nationalistic sentiments. “This is all about nationalism really, and about the imposition of a nationalist historic narrative,” said political scientist Rafal Pankowski in an interview last week. The Law and Justice party’s emphasis on Poland’s heroic past has proved an effective electoral strategy, even as it has faced a damaging international backlash.

The developments in Poland come at the intersection of two troubling trends taking place in many countries – the upsurge in Holocaust denialism and the political manipulation of the truth for political purposes.

Poland new law rises from a legitimate concern. After behaving in largely heroic ways during World War II, Poles are tired of hearing others blame them for the horrors of the Holocaust, some of whose worst chapters took place on their soil. The law aims to defend the "good name of Poland," but instead it criminalizes talk about historical truths.

At least 3 million Polish Jews and 1.9 million non-Jewish citizens were killed during the Holocaust. The Nazis built Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and other death camps in Poland murdering 3 million Polish Jews. The Poles, whose country suffered horrifically under Nazi occupation, have bristled when hearing people refer to "Polish death camps." Soon using words such as these could land you in jail for three years. 

Though the law is seeking the attention, but no one will see the side of Poland, which resisted and fought the Nazis and many Poles risked their lives to help Jews, there were, indeed, Poles who actively helped the Nazis. That is a historical fact, recounted by people who survived the massacres.