Israel criticises Poland over proposed Holocaust law

Poland was attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany during World War Two. Millions of its citizens were killed, including three million Polish Jews in the Holocaust.

The country has long objected to the use of phrases like "Polish death camps", which suggest the Polish state in some way shared responsibility for camps such as Auschwitz.

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The law is unnecessary, but the reaction I see as silly... How banning claims that the camps were not run by Germany denies the Holocaust?

Nobody insists that the camps were run by Poland.

I suppose so, but the issue sells well around the Polish press, so they'll keep looking and writing about any appearances of the phrase "Polish Death Camps" everywhere they can find it, and it's on hand for the current Polish government, to make an impression that Poles get shafted everywhere, because 130k people run away from this country every year and they don't do anything to challenge the issue. On the contrary, the only thing they can do is to raise taxes, and give some social handouts to bribe their electorate.
Obama mentioning the 'Polish Death Camps' only made the case seem serious for too many people.

It's not about "Polish Death Camps", but about the complicity of Poles in the persecution of Jewish citizens during the German occupation.
"According to a 1970 article, 200,000 Jews died at the hands of their Polish neighbors. A new law in Poland could make it difficult to publish these findings today" https://www.timesofisrael.com/complicity-of-poles-in-the-deaths-of-jews-is-highly-underestimated-scholars-say/

Perhaps another perspective is how do you define the term "complicit" when you and your family are living in constant fear of being the next victim. Of course, some Poles would have been complicit in the deaths of Jews during WW2 but it's easy for us to judge sat in our armchairs and typing away on a keyboard but not so easy if a Nazi officer is shouting in your face demanding you reveal the whereabouts of any hidden Jews in your village or you and your wife and children will be killed.

We have the benefit of looking through the prism of hindsight when we see the events of WW2. We know that Germany lost the war and peace followed. People at the time were living in a reality that Nazi occupation could be the future of them, their children and grandchildren

Nobody blames Poles for not hiding Jews or for not aiding Jews.

"Individual Poles often helped in the identification, denunciation, and hunting down of Jews in hiding, often profiting from the associated blackmail, and actively participated in the plunder of Jewish property.”

“Current research shows they were lost not only because the Germans were hunting for the Jews, but because of a deep involvement of Poles from all parts of society. Sometimes the Jews were caught and handed to the Germans, or were caught and handed to the Blue Police [Polish police force in German occupied Poland]. And some were killed by Poles,”

Nobody blames Poles for not hiding Jews or for not aiding Jews.

I suppose so, but the issue sells well around the Polish press, so they'll keep looking and writing about any appearances of the phrase "Polish Death Camps" everywhere they can find it, and it's on hand for the current Polish government, to make an impression that Poles get shafted everywhere, because 130k people run away from this country every year and they don't do anything to challenge the issue. On the contrary, the only thing they can do is to raise taxes, and give some social handouts to bribe their electorate.
Obama mentioning the 'Polish Death Camps' only made the case seem serious for too many people.

Correct. I only hope that you shall remember two things:
1. this was happening all around Europe

2. The Reich put a death penalty on those who don't provide possesed information on the Jews
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niemieckie_represje_wobec_Polak%C3%B3w_pomagaj%C4%85cych_%C5%BBydom

The Streisand effect is one of the curious byproducts of the Internet age. Named for the singer — who tried to suppress a photograph of her Malibu mansion, only to have the picture seen far more widely as a result — it occurs when an attempt to hide, remove or censor something from public view backfires badly.

The Streisand effect is now in full swing in Poland, where a simultaneously incompetent and malevolent government has passed a law — rapidly, in the middle of the night — intended among other things to criminalize the term “Polish death camps” and other expressions implying that the Polish nation was responsible for Auschwitz and other camps built by German Nazis. The national dislike of this term goes back many years and is shared widely by all political groups, for understandable reasons. Millions of Polish citizens, including many who were not Jewish, died in these camps, among them university professors and Catholic priests, both groups deliberately targeted for extinction. Unlike in France, Belgium, Italy and most other European countries, there was no fascist, pro-German or collaborationist government in Poland during the war, and no Polish SS formation. The Nazi occupiers intended to destroy Poland as a nation, to Germanize a large chunk of the country and to turn the rest of it into a German agricultural colony.

Nevertheless there were individual Poles who did terrible things to Jews during the war and afterward, just as there were individual Poles who did heroic things. The debate about how much Poland, as a nation, bears responsibility for these individual crimes has gone on for a long time and has had depressing as well as uplifting aspects. At times the conversation has been ill-tempered. But for a quarter century, dedicated Polish historians, diplomats, politicians and curators have also tried to reconcile different memories and heal wounds; one of the results was Poland’s superb museum of Jewish history, jointly built by the international Jewish community and the Polish state. Another result was the hitherto excellent Polish-Israeli relationship, which has had big cultural as well as political benefits. Every summer, for example, a Jewish festival in Warsaw (there are others in other cities too) brings Israeli pop singers to a square near my apartment, and the concerts are always packed.

The imposition, now, of a three-year prison penalty for anyone who participates in the conversation about the past in ways that irritate the current ruling party is simply ludicrous, even laughable. Will the long arm of the Polish state reach out to academic conferences in Tokyo or Buenos Aires if someone uses an incorrect phrase? Will people be punished for politically incorrect memoirs? In a pompous speech the Polish prime minister gave supporting the law, an automatic translation service made it appear as if he himself said that "camps where millions of Jews were murdered were Polish." Should he go to prison, too? Should Google Translate? The very stupidity and unenforceability of this law is what has brought on the Streisand effect: Beginning in Israel but moving quickly across all forms of social media around the world, the use of the phrase “Polish death camps” has suddenly spiked and has now been used many more times than ever before in history.
To Poland’s anti-pluralist ruling party that doesn't matter, because the real purpose of the law was never Poland's international image. In a sharp break with all previous democratic governments of the left, right and center, going back to 1989, this government does not care how isolated or ridiculous the country becomes. On the contrary, foreign criticism offers another chance to solidify the support of "patriots" who oppose the “slander” of the country, against "traitors" who do not. One pro-government journalist gave the game away when he declared that the criticism of the law in Israel was an element in an international conspiracy against the Polish government. On cue, Polish social media has been saturated with the howls of anti-Semites defending their country against this terrible attack.

I have no doubt that the Israeli government is also using this nasty little controversy for its own purposes. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been disturbed by the Hungarian government’s long-standing and well-funded campaign — on billboards, in the noisy state and pro-government media — against billionaire George Soros, with its clear anti-Semitic overtones, since he dislikes Soros’s philanthropic support for liberal causes. His decision to make an issue of this absurd Polish law instead no doubt gives him a chance to solidify his domestic support as well. Taking a stand on the past is so much easier than dealing with the complex present.

The irony is that none of the protagonists of this story can actually remember World War II, or the terror that it brought to the Jews and to Poland. But that is part of the explanation: As genuine memories of the horror recede, cartoon versions of history, easily manipulated, have come to replace them. This illiterate “debate” is one of the more sordid results.

Are you sure that this was happening all around Europe?

Sorry, I don't read Polish..
English translation shows only death penalty for helping Jews, not for sharing information about their location.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Jews_by_Poles_during_the_Holocaust

The eternal Polish victim mentality.

I was using a library computer the other day, and I saw the Polish government's propaganda video about this ( #GermanDeathCamps ).

Though to be fair to the Poles, many Jews also sold each other out to the Germans.