Pressure mounts on Poland to pull Holocaust bill as anti-Semitism grows
The bill would impose prison sentences of up to three years for mentioning the term ‘Polish death camps’ and for suggesting the country was complicit in Nazi Germany’s crimes
Poland is seeing a resurgence of anti-Semitism over pending legislation that would impose jail terms for suggestions that the nation was complicit in the Holocaust, local minority groups warned, as pressure mounts on the president to veto the bill.
Parliament passed the measure last week, drawing outrage from Israel, US criticism and condemnation from a number of international organisations. President Andrzej Duda has 21 days to decide whether to sign it into law.
The bill would impose prison sentences of up to three years for mentioning the term “Polish death camps” and for suggesting “publicly and against the facts” complicity on the part of the Polish nation or state in Nazi Germany’s crimes.
More than three million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust. Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by the Germans on Polish soil, including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.
