Netanyahu to Polish PM: No comparing Poles and Jews in the Holocaust
Israeli PM calls Polish counterpart Morawiecki after he said Jews were perpetrators in WWII as well as Poles and others, telling him comment was unacceptable and adding distortion regarding Poland's role in the Holocaust could not be corrected by means of another distortion.
In a phone call, Netanyahu told Morawiecki that his remarks were unacceptable, stressing that the distortion regarding Poland's role in the Holocaust could not be corrected by means of another distortion.
The Israeli prime minister further pointed out that the goal of the Holocaust was to destroy the Jewish people, and that all Jews were under sentence of death.
The two agreed that the countries would continue their dialogue on the matter.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Morawiecki said it won't be punishable to say that there were Polish perpetrators under a controversial new law in the country outlawing public statements that falsely and intentionally attribute Nazi crimes to Poland under the German occupation.
During a questions and answers session, Yedioth Ahronoth journalist Ronen Bergman told the story of his Polish parents.
"My mother received a prize from the Polish Ministry of Education when she was five. Then the war started and they lost much of their (respective) families, because their neighbors—their Polish neighbors—snitched to the Gestapo that they were holding Jews.
"My mother was able to save much of her family because she heard during the night that her neighbors were going to tell that they have Jews in their vicinity to the SS the next morning.
"After the war, my mother swore that she would never speak Polish for the rest of her life, not even a single word.
"If I understand correctly, after this law is legislated, I will be considered a criminal in your country for saying this. What is the purpose? What is the message that you are trying to convey the world? You are creating the opposite reaction and just attracting more attention to these atrocities," Bergman concluded, receiving a round of applause.
Prime Minister Morawiecki responded, saying,"It's extremely important to first understand that of course it won't be punishable or seen as a crime to say that there were Polish perpetrators as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian and Ukrainian perpetrators, not only German perpetrators."
After outrage in Israel and accusation of anti-Semitism, Poland's government issued a statement late Saturday, insisting the comments were not intended to deny the Holocaust.
"The comments of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during a discussion in Munich were by no means intended to deny the Holocaust, or charge the Jewish victims of the Holocaust with responsibility for what was a Nazi German perpetrated genocide," Polish government said in a statement released late on Saturday night.
"The words ... should be interpreted as a sincere call for open discussion of crimes committed against Jews during the Holocaust, regardless of the nationality of those involved in each crime," the statement also said.
"On the contrary, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has repeatedly and categorically opposed denial of the Holocaust — the murder of European Jewry — as well as anti-Semitism in all its forms," the statement continued.
It noted that the brutal occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany during the war "allowed the Nazi German murder of Jews to take place in the way that it did."
