Polish president signs Holocaust law despite protests by Israel, US & Ukraine

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda has signed into law controversial legislation that outlaws blaming Poles for the Holocaust committed on Polish territory by Nazi Germany. Under the law, anyone who accuses the Poles of being complicit in Nazi crimes or uses the term “Polish death camps” faces up to three years in prison. The new policy has fueled a diplomatic crisis with Israel. Tel Aviv continues to insist that roughly 200,000 Poles participated in the killing or the denunciation of Jews during the German occupation of Poland during World War II. The bill, which also outlaws the so-called “Bandera ideology” of Ukrainian nationalists did not sit well with the Ukrainian government. Kiev accused Poland of politicizing history and promoting a “one-sided interpretation of historic events.”