WARSAW - The Warsaw Jewish Community and the Union of the Jewish Communities in Poland expressed concern over a bill passed by the Polish parliament lower’s house that outlaws the blaming of Poles for crimes committed during the Holocaust, saying: "Putting legal restrictions on our memories and narratives poses high risk to our common Polish-Jewish history and the knowledge as to what happened to the Jewish people."
The community said in its statement: “Let us emphasize that the use of the term 'Polish death camps' is unacceptable. For years, we have been opposing the term that so unjustly distorts history. The commemoration of the Holocaust is an essential part of the Polish-Jewish memory, also in contemporary Poland. That is why it is so crucial for Poles and Jews to speak to each other so that we can get a better understanding of what had taken place during the Holocaust, including events that are painful to discuss.
“The definition of the Holocaust is well established. The Shoah was the systematic, bureaucratic and state-sponsored persecution and murdering of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. Other victims included the Roma people, prisoners of war, non-Jewish Poles, disabled persons, sexual minorities, those persecuted on political, ideological and behavioral grounds.
“The essence of the reconciliation perspective towards the Holocaust remembrance is sensitivity and mutual understanding. The Shoah was the biggest tragedy in our modern history. It has a tremendous impact on our lives and relations. 73 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we still carry the burden of the Holocaust. The machinery and the system of the Nazi Germany bore consequences for generations.
“It is also of highest importance to remember that the memory and the knowledge of the Holocaust is based on testimonies, research and commemorations. Putting legal restrictions on our memories and narratives poses high risk to our common Polish-Jewish history and the knowledge as to what happened to the Jewish people. Such restrictions aim to make us abstain from our work dedicated not only to building a stable and vibrant Jewish life on Poland, but also remembering and commemorating the Holocaust victims, martyrs and heroes. Nevertheless, we will continue our work.”
The World Jewish Congress earlier this weekstrongly objected to the proposed law calling it “an act of historical obfuscation and an attack on democracy.”
“Poles are understandably sensitive when Nazi annihilation and concentration camps are referred to as ‘Polish,’ simply due to their location on Polish soil, and they want it to be clear that Germans, not Poles, were responsible for establishing and maintaining these factories of death in which millions of Jews were murdered during the Holocaust,” said WJC CEO Robert Singer, noting that more than 70,000 non-Jewish Poles were also estimated to have perished at Auschwitz alone.
“While it is true that Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Majdanek, Chełmno, Sobibór and Bełżec should be referred to as ‘Nazi’ or ‘German’ camps in occupied Poland, it is a serious mistake for Poland to seek to criminalize those who do not adhere to this practice,” Singer said. “Having spent decades in the field of education, I deeply believe that this must be changed through a campaign of education, not criminalization. Poland’s new law is especially objectionable as it stifles any real confrontation with the most chilling aspect of the country’s wartime history - the extent to which local Poles were complicit in the destruction of their Jewish neighbors.”
“Outstanding Polish scholars have made very clear in their meticulously researched writings that this was hardly an isolated phenomenon. Declaring that such literature is defamatory and that those who have produced it are engaged in criminal activity amounts to a whitewash of the historical record and must be thoroughly rejected,” Singer said. “The passage of this law can only be seen as an act of historical obfuscation and an attack on democracy.”