We are making this public appeal out of our concern for the state of Polish-Jewish and Polish-Israeli relations. We call on all parties to exercise emotional restraint in the name of protecting the common good; the truth and the dialogue that has been fostered over the past quarter of a century. The Amended Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, passed by the Polish Sejm on 26 January to the next stage of legislation, introduces criminal penalties of up to three years’ imprisonment for “public and contrary-to-fact conduct that attributes responsibility or co-responsibility for Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich to the Polish nation or the Polish state”.

This unfortunate bill has made major news in Poland and internationally, raising logical, moral and legal concerns. Why must a discussion of historical facts involve courts and prosecutors? Why should the victims and witnesses of the Holocaust have to watch what they say for fear of being arrested, and will the testimony of a Jewish survivor who “feared Poles” be a punishable offence? Why must this be argued based on paragraphs from the criminal code and not through the merits of debate? Is this law intended to be symmetrical to the law forbidding Holocaust denial? And why are certain professions given a free pass – why are only academics and artists free from prosecution for voicing “anti-Polish” opinions? What about Journalists? Teachers? Where is the line between acceptable education and art and punishable journalism, and who would determine these undeniable “facts”?

The intention behind this bill was to defend the good name of Poland, that much is clear. When Poles hear the words “Polish camps”, they assume, often overreacting, that they are being accused of being responsible for Auschwitz (when Jan Karski wrote about “Polish camps” he was describing “camps located in Poland”). This bill goes further than that – it assumes the Poles’ complete innocence, framing them as the only guiltless nation in Europe. This is not the way to reclaim Poland’s collective dignity. All is not yet lost. Legislators still have a chance to reconsider and we urgently call on them to do so.

Anne Applebaum

Anna Barańczak

Maria Barcikowska

Witold Bereś

Bogdan Białek

Anna Bikont

Yael Birenbaum

Halina Birenbaum

Jacek Bocheński

Teresa Bogucka

Krzysztof Burnetko

Anna Dodziuk

Barbara Engelking

Zofia Floriańczyk

Andrzej Friedman

Beata Fudalej

Jolanta Gałązka-Friedman

Timothy Garton Ash

Konstanty Gebert

Agnieszka Glińska

Jan Tomasz Gross

Irena Grudzińska-Gross

Mikołaj Grynberg

Jan Hartman

Jan Hertrich-Woleński

Agnieszka Holland

Krystyna Janda

Maria Janion

Zofia Jankiewicz

Jacek Kleyff

Sergiusz Kowalski

Stanisław Krajewski

Maria Kruczkowska

Krystyna Krynicka

Ryszard Krynicki

Ireneusz Krzemiński

Joanna Kurczewska

Jacek Kurczewski

Jarosław Kurski

Aleksander Kwaśniewski

Andrzej Leder

Wojciech Lemański

Paweł Liberski

Barbara Mechowska-Kleyff

Edward Mitukiewicz

Krzysztof Niedałtowski

Przemysław Nowacki

Stanisław Obirek

Janusz Onyszkiewicz

Piotr Pacewicz

Grażyna Pawlak

Monika Płatek

Masza Potocka

Stanisław Radwan

Shoshana Ronen

Jacek Różycki

Andrzej Rzepliński

Paula Sawicka

Dorota Segda

Radek Sikorski

Marek Siwiec

Jarosław Sławek

Aleksander Smolar

Kazimierz Sobolewski

Piotr Sommer

Krystyna Starczewska

Andrzej Stasiuk

Dariusz Stola

Joanna Szczęsna

Kazimiera Szczuka

Monika Sznajderman

Piotr Szwajcer

Paweł Śpiewak

Frank Telling-Saphar

Róża Thun

Olga Tokarczuk

Joanna Tokarska-Bakir

Aleksandra Trzaska

Mikołaj Trzaska

Magdalena Tulli

Grzegorz Turnau

Marian Turski

Piotr Wiślicki

Krystyna Zachwatowicz-Wajda

Maja Zagajewska

Adam Zagajewski

Katarzyna Zimmerer

Jacek Żakowski