Poland softens controversial ‘Holocaust law’ after backlash

Lawmakers vote to remove the threat of jail terms for people who implicate country in Nazi crimes.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki | Stoyan Nenov/AFP via Getty Images

WARSAW — Polish lawmakers voted Wednesday to remove the threat of jail terms for people who suggest the country was responsible for Nazi crimes, softening its so-called Holocaust law which drew the ire of the U.S. and Israel.

The law was intended to ensure Poland isn’t tarred with responsibility for helping Germany commit the Holocaust during World War II: The country has long objected to how former Nazi-run death camps within its territory, like Auschwitz, are sometimes referred to as “Polish.” But critics accuse the law of advocating a revisionist version of history.

Israel threatened to recall its ambassador from Warsaw and limit trade with the country over the law, and the U.S. said Polish leaders would not be able to meet President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence until it was repealed.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had asked the parliament to amend the legislation, which went into effect in March. His Law and Justice (PiS) party then rushed the amendments through the process — which requires three formal readings on legislation set to be changed — in less than two hours in the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament. The upper house later also passed the amendments, and President Andrzej Duda then approved the change.

The move to water down the law comes as the Polish government continues to quarrel with the EU over the ruling Law and Justice party’s reforms, and seeks to draw closer ties with Washington — which is fighting its own battles with Brussels. It recently emerged that Warsaw told Washington it was willing to pay up to $2 billion for a U.S. Army armored division permanently stationed on its territory as a deterrent against Russia.

During the debate in the Sejm, some opposition politicians accused PiS of buckling under pressure from foreign powers. At one point, a far-right lawmaker blocked the speaking podium and said “today the government is crawling in front of Jews.” The parliament’s speaker then canceled the debate and moved to a vote, in which the amendment was overwhelmingly approved.

Liberal lawmakers also criticized PiS, with Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, head of the Nowoczesna party group in parliament, tweeting that the process was “a setup of the nationalists with PiS to make it impossible to ask difficult questions of the government.”

Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center issued a statement saying the amendment was “a positive step in a proper direction.”

“This law was unnecessary but today’s move is good for Poland and for the Jewish community here,” Jonathan Ornstein from the Jewish Community Center of Kraków told the TVN24 news channel.

Polish lawmakers did not, however, remove another part of the law, criticized by Ukraine, which equated the World War II attacks by Ukrainian nationalists against Poles to that of Nazis and communists.

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