Polish President To Sign Holocaust Speech Bill, Send It To Judges For Review

Polish President Andrzej Duda with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar- Kitarovic at Auschwitz in 2016. Image by Getty
(JTA) — Polish President Andrzej Duda said he would sign a controversial law limiting rhetoric on atrocities committed in his country during World War II, but added he would refer it for review by a constitutional court.
The bill would make it illegal — and punishable by up to three years in prison — to say that the Polish government, nation or people took part in the Holocaust. The bill would also make it illegal to describe Nazi death camps located in Poland — including Auschwitz-Birkenau — as “Polish.”
Duda said this Tuesday during a press conference in Warsaw about the bill that the lower and upper houses of the Polish parliament passed after Jan. 26. It criminalizes blaming the Polish state or nation of crimes and atrocities the bill says were perpetrated exclusively by Nazis during their occupation of Poland.
The bill generated an outpouring of condemnations from international Jewish groups and from the highest levels of the Israel government, who suggested it whitewashes the actions of some Poles who are responsible for killing Jews during the Holocaust.
The bill was submitted following many years in which Polish officials protested the use of the term “Polish death camps” to describe facilities set up on Polish soil by the German Nazis. To become law, Duda must sign the bills passed in parliament.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Think every Palestinian in Gaza is Hamas? This week’s protests prove you’re wrong
-
Opinion A Palestinian Oscar-winner’s arrest shocked the world. For these Jewish activists, it was terrifyingly normal
-
Opinion In the Trump administration and Israel, a grotesque display of virility coupled with a loss of humanity
-
Fast Forward Cornell’s new Jewish president says he is ‘very comfortable with where Cornell is currently’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.