A diplomatic crisis has erupted over a draft Polish law that it will make it illegal to suggest Poland bore any responsibility for Nazi atrocities committed on its soil. Israel and the U.S. protested against the move even as survivors gathered at the Auschwitz camp in Oswiecim, Poland, on January 27 for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Before World War II, Poland was home to Europe’s largest Jewish community of some 3.2 million.
Barbed wire fences are pictured at the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in Oswiecim, Poland on January 27, 2018.
Nazi Germany attacked and occupied Poland in 1939 and later built death camps, including Auschwitz and Treblinka, on Polish soil. Most of the Jews who lived in Poland were killed by Nazi occupiers. The Polish government said the legislation was aimed to stop the Polish people or state being blamed for Nazi crimes. The Prime Ministers of both Israel and Poland have “agreed to open immediate dialogue...”
