Polish nationalists asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate the comments of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin about the Holocaust which he said during commemorations at Auschwitz last week Vice President of the National Movement Krzysztof Bosak said.
The nationalist group informed the prosecutor’s office about the Israeli president’s possible violation of Holocaust speech legislation which makes it illegal to blame the Polish nation for Nazi crimes committed on its soil.
Last week Rivlin and Polish President Andrzej Duda participated in the March of the Living in Auschwitz. After that the Times of Israel newspaper reported that Rivlin told his Polish counterpart that Poland allowed Germany’s genocide to take place.
In February Duda enacted a bill which outlaws the propaganda of the Ukrainian nationalist ideology and any accusations of Polish people’s participation in war crimes during World War II as well as any denials of the killings of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
The bill imposes fines or a maximum three-year prison sentence for anyone who ascribes “responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich.”
The bill has already provoked diplomatic tensions with Israel Ukraine and the United States. Tel Aviv in particular is concerned that the law could trigger the prosecution of Holocaust survivors if they testify against individual Poles who allegedly killed or gave up Jews to the Nazis.
