Poland's Catholic Church has welcomed a government decision to modify a new law imposing prison sentences for blaming Poles for the Holocaust, following complaints by Western governments and Jewish organisations.
"We're satisfied the clauses which caused controversy and provoked serious unease have been removed", said Bishop Rafal Markowski, chairman of the Church's Commission for Dialogue with Judaism. "I experienced this unease in talks with Jewish community representatives, with whom we very much depend on good relations".
Over six million Jews were killed during Poland's 1939-45 occupation by Nazi Germany, and Polish officials have long objected to accusations of Polish complicity in the wartime Holocaust, in which six million Jews died. Under the law, in force since 1 March, jail terms of up to three years awaited anyone "publicly and against the facts attributing to the Polish nation or Polish state responsibility or co-responsibility for Nazi crimes", or "flagrantly reducing responsibility of the real perpetrators".
The measure was condemned as "baseless" by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem Memorial Institute, which warned it would impede research and debate on the Holocaust, while Polish newspapers said American officials had also cautioned that security and economic ties could be downgraded.
In a surprise announcement last week, premier Mateusz Morawiecki's government said it had decided to scrap the penal clauses and use "other tools to protect Poland's good name" instead. It added that Poland and Israel would in future co-operate more closely on Holocaust commemorations, and on countering the use of false terms such as "Polish death camps" in the international media.
In March, Poland's Catholic bishops condemned a new wave of anti-semitism touched off by controversy over the law, after the 54-country Organisation on Security and Co-operation in Europe convened a Warsaw session on "the security needs of Jewish communities".
Bishop Markowski told Poland's Catholic Information Agency (KAI) the new Polish-Israeli agreement would have "key importance for Poland" in helping combat "very hurtful" accusations against the country over its historic role. "This is an important and weighty moment in Polish-Israeli ties - for the simple reason that it makes possible a common view of history and suggests the achievement of a certain compromise", the bishop said.
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