Israel is opposed to the description of Nazi concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, as 'Polish Death Camps,' the government said in a joint statement with the Polish government Tuesday.
The Nazi regime established many concentration camps in territory outside of Germany during World War II, with several of the most notorious, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka, set-up in occupied Poland. Most Poles, at that time, were virulently anti-Semitic and did not protest what was happening to their Jewish neighbors; in fact, they looted their homes, reported them and otherwise aided the Nazi machine, except for those later recognized as Righteous Gentiles.
After WWII, when some remnants of Polish Jewry returned to their homes, there was a pogrom in the town of Kielce on July 4, 1946, perpetrated by Polish soldiers, police officers, and civilians in which over 40 Jews were killed.
The Polish government has passed legislation penalizing those who refer to the Nazi camps as 'Polish Death Camps.' Violators can be sentenced to up to three years in prison.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other Israeli ministers and government officials met with Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and 10 of her cabinet ministers and deputy ministers in a series of meetings in Jerusalem. Following the meetings, the Polish and Israeli government released a joint statement which dealt with a range of different issues, including defense, foreign affairs, and innovation.
The part of the joint statement which dealt with the Holocaust read: "The governments attribute great importance to their dedicated efforts in the field of education, particularly in eradicating false stereotypes in both countries. Both governments firmly oppose any form of discrimination on racial grounds and antisemitism, as well as any attempts at distorting the history of the Jewish or Polish peoples by denying or diminishing the victimhood of the Jews during the Holocaust, or using the erroneous terms of memory such as ‘Polish death camps.’"
Netanyahu spoke of the long and complicated history of the Jewish people in Poland. “We’ve had a joint history, the Jewish people and the Polish people, for 1,000 years. It’s had its ups and downs, in the previous century the worst in the history of humanity with the murder of three million Polish Jews by the Nazis in a horrible tragedy.”
He also noted that Poland also suffered under Nazi rule during World War II. “Poland too underwent terrible suffering during that war, and the history of modern Israel and modern Poland in the last 70 years is a history of tremendous hope and tremendous vitality. The rise of these two modern democracies, with free economies, with robust people, I think is a story of hope and inspiration for all of the world.”
He went on to praise Poland's modern accomplishments, calling it “one of the important countries in Europe,” and saying that it is “developing in many ways more rapidly than most of the countries of Europe.”