In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely expressed Israel's position on the Polish bill forbidding definition of the death camps as “Polish.”
According to the Deputy Minister, a conversation of clarification to which the Deputy Polish Ambassador was summoned was a very acceptable move as part of the Israeli desire to express dissatisfaction and resentment over an internal move. One of the reactionary steps is to send the Israeli ambassador to the Polish prime minister and simultaneously summon the deputy ambassador to a conversation in which it is made clear that the State of Israel does not want to see this bill entered into the book of laws in the Polish parliament.
"There is a very difficult struggle over the subject of Holocaust remembrance and there are attempts to rewrite the Holocaust and to remove responsibility from countries that were partners in the crimes of the Nazi regime. Poland, unfortunately, with all the good intention to present it as an occupied country, which indeed it was, in the end was an active partner in part of the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jewish people, and we want that in the collective Polish consciousness within the framework of our important desire that memory of the Holocaust never fade, that this will be written in the annals of Polish history and that there will be no attempts to block historians who reveal the cooperation that existed during the war. It is forbidden to downplay the responsibility of those nations that were under Nazi occupation, it is forbidden to ignore the atrocities of individual people who acted in full cooperation with the Nazi regime.
Perhaps, the deputy minister was asked, there is room to understand the Polish desire to shake off the branding of the death camps as “Polish” because, at the end of the day, they were “German camps on Polish soil?”
"We understand that there is a much higher motivation here than the semantics of the camps that were on Polish soil and were operated by the Nazi regime. There is a desire to minimize the responsibility of those Poles who participated in the war crimes committed by the Nazis. We are not ready for this to enter the book of laws. It harms the freedom of research of historians. The graduates of my generation visited the camps and saw the thunderous silence of those who saw Jews being led to the camps, and I think it is a Polish responsibility to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust and not to say that Poland was not involved. Removing responsibility harms the freedom of study of Holocaust research and the memories of Holocaust survivors. These are not things that help dealing with Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism in Europe."
Hotovely is not ready to make a distinction and determine that the semantic change in the definition of the camps is agreed to by Israel while it opposes other forms of denial. "The whole idea of bargaining will bring us to the reality of a postmodern world in which history is relative and everyone tells his own story . There is a slippery slope here that begins by not calling them ‘Polish camps’ and then continues by shaking off the Polish part in the horrors and deciding that the perpetrators of the atrocities were the Nazi regime alone, while we know that this was not the case. The Nazi regime, of course, bears the highest responsibility for the darkest moment in the history of mankind, but beyond the Nazi regime there were many peoples who were [involved] within this dark age in the deeds that were committed, and these peoples must take responsibility so that history will not repeat itself. "
On the reaction of the deputy ambassador to the Israeli position, Hotovely says that he tried to clarify the Polish position. She added, "[Poland] is a country with which we have friendly relations. There are several countries in the European region that work with Israel," she said. "Poland did not participate in the march of folly that was the vote against the American declaration on Jerusalem. There is a wide range of activities that we hold together with the Polish government. We do not like this matter and we conveyed the message from the prime minister through the president and the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and we very much hope that this message will be conveyed. "
Hotovely adds that the Polish government is also under pressure from the United States not to continue in this direction, and hopes that this will bring results and that the bill will not be incorporated into Polish law.
The Deputy Minister was asked where the Foreign Ministry had missed the mark in its activity vis-a-vis the Poles, apparently leading to the dismal outcome of the vote on the law. According to Hotovely, there was no failure in this matter. "Not only was there no failure, but in the last two years intensive work with the Polish government took place on this issue. My political adviser was one of those involved in the matter of canceling the decision. For two years the Poles said that the issue would not be promoted, and now that it has been promoted, we do not think it is right or appropriate, and we are using all the diplomatic means which we have at our disposal to dissuade the Poles from taking this step. "