Israeli leaders have attacked pending legislation in Poland that would outlaw blaming Poles for the crimes of the Holocaust, with some accusing the Polish government of outright denial as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called the proposed law “baseless” and ordered his country’s ambassador to meet Polish leaders to express his strong opposition. “One cannot change history and the Holocaust cannot be denied,” he said.

On Friday the lower house of the Polish parliament passed the bill, which prescribes prison for using phrases such as “Polish death camps” to refer to the killing sites Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during the second world war.



Many Poles fear such phrasing makes some people incorrectly conclude that Poland had a role in running the camps. But critics say the legislation could hinder debating history, thus harming freedom of expression and opening the way to Holocaust denial.



The bill still needs approval from the senate and president. However, it marks a dramatic step by Poland’s rightwing government, targeting anyone who tries to undermine its official stance that Poles were only heroes during the war, not Nazi collaborators who committed heinous crimes.



Netanyahu’s government has generally had good relations with Poland, which has recently been voting with Israel in international organisations.



At Auschwitz on Saturday evening, Israel’s ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, abandoned a prepared speech and criticised the bill, saying: “Everyone in Israel was revolted at this news.”



The legislation provoked outrage in Israel. The president, Reuven Rivlin, noting that exactly 73 years had passed since the Auschwitz death camp on Polish soil was liberated, cited the words of a former Polish president about how history could not be faked and the truth could not be hidden.



“The Jewish people, the state of Israel, and the entire world must ensure that the Holocaust is recognised for its horrors and atrocities,” Rivlin said. “Also among the Polish people, there were those who aided the Nazis in their crimes. Every crime, every offence, must be condemned. They must be examined and revealed.”



Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial issued a statement on Saturday night opposing the Polish legislation and trying to put into historical context the “complex truth” regarding the Polish population’s attitude toward its Jews.

“There is no doubt that the term ‘Polish death camps’ is a historical misrepresentation,” it said. “However, restrictions on statements by scholars and others regarding the Polish people’s direct or indirect complicity with the crimes committed on their land during the Holocaust are a serious distortion.”