WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish campaign group is suing an Argentine newspaper it says breached a new law that makes it a criminal offence to suggest Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

In what appeared to be the first legal action under the so-called Holocaust law, just hours after it took effect, the Polish League Against Defamation said it filed a complaint against Argentina’s Pagina 12 daily. The paper said it had not received formal notice of the lawsuit.

A minister from Poland’s conservative government applauded the move to invoke the law which Warsaw says will protect it from slander, but which the United States and Israel said would suppress authentic historic research and free speech.

The League, a non-governmental group that campaigns to protect Poland’s historical reputation abroad, said that in December 2017 Pagina 12 used a photograph of Polish so-called ‘doomed soldiers’ who fought against communists after the war to illustrate an article on the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews.

“The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organization said in a statement.

The ruling Law and Justice party has praised the ‘doomed soldiers’. While many are seen as national heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination, some led killings of Jews, Belarusians and other minorities.

In an article posted on its website on Saturday evening, Pagina 12 said, “this newspaper did not receive any legal communication and only learned of the information through international news agency reports.”

“If successful, this attempt at international censorship could threaten freedom of expression worldwide,” the article read.

Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court.

“The organization has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible - and it should do so — then there will be a court case,” he told private radio station Zet.

Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupied Poland — home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community at the time — including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis, who invaded Poland in 1939, also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians.</s>EU lawmakers on Thursday supported the European Commission's plans to take unprecedented punitive steps against Poland over reforms of its judiciary and state media that they say threaten the rule of law in the ex-communist country.



In a further sign of Warsaw's deepening international isolation, a new Holocaust law that has angered Israel and the United States, Poland's close NATO ally, came into force on Thursday. The law imposes jail sentences of up to three years for saying Poland was complicit in Nazi German crimes.





The European Union's executive Commission has recommended a procedure that could theoretically lead to Poland losing its voting rights in the EU unless it concedes ground by March 20 on the issue of political control of the judiciary.The European Parliament voted on Thursday 422 in favor to 147 against, with 48 abstentions, on a non-binding resolution to support the Commission's tough stance towards Poland.The vote adds to pressure from Western European governments who have told Poland, once an earnest champion of democratic changes after the fall of communism, that time is running out for it to address their concerns over democratic freedoms.Poland's nationalist ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) says its reforms are an internal matter and are needed because the courts are inefficient and steeped in a communist era-mentality.Its new prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has sought to soothe the tensions since the start of this year and is due to meet Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker again on March 8.Stripping Poland of its EU voting rights remains unlikely because it would require unanimity among all other EU governments and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, himself seen by the EU as weakening democratic checks and balances, has promised to block any such action against his Polish ally.But it would be politically very embarrassing for Poland if the EU ever comes to vote on sanctions, even with a Hungarian veto.The dispute could also prompt member states to cut funds allocated to Poland in the next EU budget that runs from 2021. Poland is currently the biggest beneficiary of EU handouts for infrastructure and other projects.REASSURING ISRAELMeanwhile, a Polish delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Bartosz Cichocki held talks in Israel on Thursday in an effort to defuse the row over Poland's new Holocaust law. Israel and the United States say the law could criminalize truthful scholarship on the role some Poles played in German crimes. Opponents accuse PiS of politicizing World War Two to build a nationalist sense of grievance among Poles.PiS, which sees Poland solely as a victim of Nazi German aggression, says the law is needed to protect national honor."We are here ready and open to answer all the questions and to clarify whatever is left to be clarified with regard to the anti-defamation law recently amended in Poland," Chicocki told his Israeli hosts in Jerusalem.Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem replied: "We must make sure that historical truths are preserved and that there will be no restriction on the freedom of research and speech..."More than 90 percent of the 3.2 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis during their occupation of the country, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust. Jews from other parts of Europe were sent to be murdered at death camps such as Auschwitz and Treblinka, built and operated by the Germans in Poland.The Nazis also killed 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish citizens, although there was never a plan to exterminate all of them, as there was with Jews.</s>BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — A right-wing Polish group sued a newspaper in Argentina under the country’s new Holocaust law for using a photo of Polish partisans to illustrate an article about the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941.

The lawsuit was filed on Friday by the Polish League Against Defamation, or the Reduta Dobrego Imienia, hours after the controversial new law took effect. It is the first lawsuit filed that invokes the new law.

The League, or RDI, filed the lawsuit in a Warsaw court about a story published in the Argentinean newspaper Pagina/12 in December 2017, about the Jedwabne pogrom, a 1941 massacre of more than 300 Jews by their Polish neighbors during the Nazi occupation. The article was written by psychologist Federico Pavlovsky.

According to RDI, the Argentinean news outlet accompanied the story with an image of Polish resistance fighters who had nothing to do with the massacre. The article was trying to “confirm Polish anti-Semitism to its readers,” showing a “huge ignorance about history, for which it should officially apologize to all Poles,” Radio Poland reported.

“If successful, this attempt at international censorship could threaten freedom of expression worldwide,” the newspaper said in a statement.

Sunday’s edition of Pagina/12, which is published in Buenos Aires, is mostly dedicated to the issue of Poland’s new law, an amendment to the National Institute of Remembrance which criminalizes claims that the Polish nation or state was responsible for Nazi crimes.

The article referenced in the lawsuit, “Familiar faces,” was republished again on Sunday, with an editor’s note indicating that it was this article originally published on Dec. 18 that sparked the complaint.

“The organization has a right to submit such a lawsuit. If the court decides the complaint is admissible – and it should do so — then there will be a court case,” Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik told private radio station Zet.

The Argentine newspaper published letters expressing solidarity with the newspaper and letters from critics of the new controversial law, including experts on law, human rights and freedom of expression. The president of the Argentinean Jewish political umbrella DAIA, Ariel Cohen Sabban, wrote: “About the complaint received by Pagina/12 we are very concerned about the position that is being taken by the Polish state.”

According to its website, RDI was established in 2012 to initiate and support actions aimed at correcting false information on Poland’s history, in particular World War II, such as the role of Poles in the war, Polish people’s attitude to Jews, and German concentration camps.

Under the controversial new Polish law, violators could face up to three years in prison, though government officials have said that prosecution under the law is unlikely. Critics of the law include Israeli leaders, Yad Vashem, the U.S. State Department and Jewish groups.</s>A major Argentinian newspaper has become the first target of Poland's controversial new Holocaust legislation, which took effect Thursday despite Israeli diplomatic pressure. 



The nationalist Polish League Against Defamation (RDI) group filed a lawsuit on Friday against the daily Argentinian newspaper Pagina 12's website which it says used a photo of post-Second World War Polish resistance fighters in a December 2017 article about the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom.





The pogrom saw the massacre of at least 340 Jews from the small Polish town of Jedwabne and surrounding areas killed by their Polish neighbors on July 10, 1941.The RDI complaint stated that the Buenos Aires-based Pagina 12 newspaper and journalist Federico Pavlovsky's actions amounted to "manipulation in order to harm the Polish nation and the good reputation of Polish soldiers.""By issuing such a statement, the publisher showed great historical ignorance, for which he should officially apologize to all Poles," said the RDI. The group does not address whether the law can be applied retroactively to cover an article published prior to the legislation coming into force.The new legislation makes it a crime to say that the Polish nation was responsible or co-responsible for crimes committed during the Holocaust, an offense punishable by a fine and up to three years in prison.The law, which remains subject to review by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal should its public prosecutor's office attempt to press charges, has led to an unprecedented crisis in diplomatic relations between Israel and Poland.Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid responded to the lawsuit on Saturday, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "to stop negotiating [with Poland] immediately and recall [Israel's] ambassador."Amid the diplomatic stand-off between Israel and Poland, Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem stated Thursday that preserving the memory of the Holocaust is of greater importance than maintaining good diplomatic ties with Warsaw.“Israel and Poland enjoy strong political bilateral ties, based on common values,” Rotem said during talks with a Polish delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Bartosz Cichocki in Jerusalem.“Preserving the memory of the Holocaust is a matter beyond the bilateral relationship between Israel and Poland. It is a core issue cutting to the essence of the Jewish people,” he added.On Monday, Polish Ambassador to Israel Jacek Chodorowicz told a Knesset committee that the new law will not be enforced in the near future.“The Polish Justice Ministry committed to not enforcing the new law before there is an in-depth examination of all of its components, including a discussion with Israeli representatives,” said Chodorowicz, emphasizing that the two countries would continue to discuss the divisive legislation.</s>* Law suit appears to be first under new law

* Minister says he hopes case will go to court

WARSAW, March 3 (Reuters) - A Polish campaign group is suing an Argentinian newspaper it says breached a new law that makes it a criminal offence to suggest Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

In what appeared to be the first legal action under the so-called Holocaust law, just hours after it took effect, the Polish League Against Defamation said it filed a complaint against Argentina’s Pagina 12 daily.

A minister from Poland’s conservative government applauded the move to invoke the law which Warsaw says will protect it from slander, but which the United States and Israel said would suppress authentic historic research and free speech.

The League, a non-governmental group that campaigns to protect Poland’s historical reputation abroad, said that in December 2017 Pagina 12 used a photograph of Polish so-called‘doomed soldiers’ who fought against communists after the war to illustrate an article on the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews.

“The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organisation said in a statement.

The ruling Law and Justice party has praised the‘doomed soldiers’. While many are seen as national heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination, some led killings of Jews, Belarussians and other minorities.

Pagina 12 was not immediately available to comment.

Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court.

“The organisation has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible - and it should do so — then there will be a court case,” he told private radio station Zet.

Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupied Poland — home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community at the time — including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbours during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis, who invaded Poland in 1939, also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians. (Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk Additional reporting by Luc Cohen in Buenos Aires Editing by Robin Pomeroy)</s>An Argentinian newspaper has become the first outlet to be targeted by Poland's controversial new Holocaust law, after a nationalist group filed a case on Friday hours after the legislation went live.

The law, which went into effect Thursday, sets fines or up to three years in jail for anyone ascribing "responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich".

The main aim is to prevent people from erroneously describing Nazi German death camps in Poland, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, as Polish.

The legislation has drawn widespread international criticism and ignited an unprecedented diplomatic row with Israel.

Critics, including Israel's government, have expressed concerns that the legislation could open the door to prosecuting Holocaust survivors for their testimony should it concern the involvement of individual Poles in killing or giving up Jews to the Germans.

On Friday the Polish League Against Defamation (RDI), a non-profit which is close to Poland's conservative government, lodged a case under the new law against the website of Pagina 12, a newspaper in Argentina.

The RDI said the paper had used a picture of anti-Communist Polish resistance fighters from after World War Two in an article about the Jedwabne pogrom, a 1941 massacre of more than 300 Jews by their Polish neighbours during the Nazi occupation.

RDI accused the newspaper and its journalist Federico Pavlovsky of "an action intended to harm the Polish nation and the good reputation of Polish soldiers".

Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II, losing six million of its citizens, including three million Jews.</s>A Polish campaign group is suing an Argentinian newspaper it says breached a new law that makes it a criminal offence to suggest Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

In what appeared to be the first legal action under the so-called Holocaust law, just hours after it took effect, the Polish League Against Defamation said it filed a complaint against Argentina’s Pagina 12 daily.

A minister from Poland’s conservative government applauded the move to invoke the law which Warsaw says will protect it from slander, but which the United States and Israel said would suppress authentic historic research and free speech.

The League, a non-governmental group that campaigns to protect Poland’s historical reputation abroad, said that in December 2017 Pagina 12 used a photograph of Polish so-called ‘doomed soldiers’ who fought against communists after the war to illustrate an article on the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews.

“The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organization said in a statement.

The ruling Law and Justice party has praised the ‘doomed soldiers.’ While many are seen as national heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination, some led killings of Jews, Belarussians and other minorities.

Pagina 12 was not immediately available to comment.

Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court.

“The organization has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible – and it should do so – then there will be a court case,” he told private radio station Zet.

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Although thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors during the war, research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.</s>Sign up for one of our email newsletters.

WARSAW, Poland — A Polish law that makes it a crime to falsely accuse the Polish nation of crimes committed by Nazi Germany took effect Thursday, part of a wider effort by nationalist authorities to use history to defend the country's honor and pride.

For years Polish officials have struggled to fight phrases like “Polish death camps” that are sometimes used abroad to refer to Auschwitz and other death camps that Nazi Germany built and operated on occupied Polish territory during World War II.

Some Poles fear that as the war grows more distant, new generations will mistakenly believe that Poles were the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

The law, however, has sparked a crisis with Israel, where Holocaust survivors and officials fear its true aim is to repress research and debate about Poles who killed Jews during the World War II.

Polish and Israeli representatives met Thursday in Jerusalem to resolve a standoff over the law.

“We must make sure that historical truths are preserved and that there be no restriction on the freedom of research and speech,” Yuval Rotem, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and head of Israel's team, told reporters.

Rotem also expressed concerns about a spike in anti-Semitism in Poland that has erupted amid the dispute with Israel, saying that would be addressed during the talks as well.

Polish team leader Bartosz Cichocki, a deputy foreign minister, said his side was committed to fighting anti-Semitism and to “defend and promote truth, freedom of research, artistic performance and public debate.”

“We are here open and ready to answer all the questions and clarify whatever is left to be clarified with regard to the anti-defamation law,” Cichocki said.

Poland's president signed the law last month but also sent it to the constitutional court for review. Polish officials have said no criminal charges will be brought until the court has made its ruling, expected in several weeks.

But prosecutors are already looking for cases where Poland is defamed over its wartime activities.

Critics of the law argue it is so broad and vaguely worded that it could be abused.

A prominent Jewish journalist, Konstanty Gebert, challenged prosecutors with an article Thursday in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily that he said “may constitute a crime” under the new law.

Gebert wrote that “many members of the Polish nation bear co-responsibility for some Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich,” referring to the wartime massacres of Jews by their Polish neighbors in villages like Jedwabne in 1941. He also wrote that “the Polish state committed a crime against peace” when it took part in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, among other examples.

The law has also been criticized by the United States, which fears it could stifle free expression and academic research. Officials have warned Poland it could hurt Poland's strategic relationships with both the U.S. and Israel.

Recognizing the concern about the law, the government dispatched Undersecretary of State Marek Magierowski, to Washington this week to meet officials, lawmakers and Jewish groups to try to allay their fears.

Magierowski said Wednesday that Poland would never “whitewash” its history and the fact that some Poles did commit “ignoble acts” during World War II. But, he said the law gives the government a means to fight back when the country is accused of complicity in the Holocaust.

Alon Bernstein in Jerusalem and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed.</s>Flowers are placed at the memorial to Janusz Korczak who died in the gas chamber of the Treblinka Nazi German death camp in 1942 together with the children of the Jewish orphanage that he ran in the W

Just one day after Poland’s controversial new Holocaust law took effect, a Polish organization filed the first lawsuit invoking it.

The Polish League Against Defamation, an independent organization considered close to Poland’s right-wing, nationalist government, filed suit in Warsaw on Friday against the Argentine paper Pagina 12, accusing it of damaging Poland’s reputation.

The paper had published an article about the 1941 pogrom committed by Poles against their Jewish neighbors in the town of Jedwabne, an incident that has become a symbol of Polish collaboration with Nazi crimes. The lawsuit focused specifically on the photo accompanying the article, which doesn’t illustrate the pogrom itself but shows a group of Polish partisans who fought the country’s communist regime in the 1950s.

The suit argues that by linking the pogrom, which took place when Poland was under Nazi occupation, with Polish “freedom fighters” who fought the communist occupation that began once World War II ended, the paper was being “manipulative” and “harming the Polish nation and the reputation of Polish soldiers.” Moreover, it charged, the paper was seeking persuade its readers that Poland is anti-Semitic.

The paper’s choice of photograph demonstrated “great historical ignorance, for which it ought to apologize to all Poles,” the suit adds.

However, since the article was published in December, before the law took effect, it’s not clear whether the suit will be admissible.

The new law makes it a crime to claim the Polish nation was involved in the crimes of the Nazis, war crimes or crimes against humanity, “in defiance of the truth.” The sentence for violators ranges from a fine to three years in jail. Poland deems the law applicable to everyone, even people who aren’t Polish citizens.

The law, which officially took effect on March 1, was approved by the Polish parliament last month and then signed by President Andrzej Duda. But the Polish Justice Ministry said it wouldn’t enforce the legislation until it has been reviewed by Poland’s constitutional court. No date for the court hearing has been set yet.

Israel has been harshly critical of the law, and Polish and Israeli representatives met at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Thursday in an effort to find a solution that would satisfy both countries. Israel argues that the law distorts history and will undermine academic research and freedom of expression. But Thursday’s three-hour meeting did not produce an agreement, and the parties plan to meet again.

Meanwhile, a Polish parliamentary committee which is examining the possibility of demanding reparations from Germany announced this weekend that Berlin owes it $850 billion for damages incurred during World War II.

“We are talking about very large but justified sums for war crimes, for the destroyed cities, the lost demographic potential of our country,” said Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a member of parliament from the ruling Law and Justice party, on Friday. He chairs the parliamentary committee established in September to estimate the amount of reparations Poland should seek if it chooses to do so.

Germany flatly refuses to pay reparations, saying this issue was settled back in the 1950s with Poland’s communist government of the time. But Poland rejects this argument, saying the communist regime’s decisions don’t bind the governments that came after it, because they were not made freely, but under pressure from the Soviet Union.</s>(JTA) — Three years ago, Shaul de Malach had no problem joining fellow educators from his country on a trip to former Nazi death camps in Poland.

Like tens of thousands of Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora who go on commemorative missions each year, de Malach “didn’t exactly relish the thought of visiting Auschwitz,” he told JTA Wednesday about his trip in 2015 as part of the Council of Youth Movements in Israel’s biennial seminar in Poland. “But I thought it was important for me to see as a Jew and a teacher.”

But de Malach has since changed his mind.

Following Poland’s passing this year of a controversial law that makes it illegal to blame the country for Nazi crimes, de Malach now promotes a boycott of Poland trips by the tens of thousands of members of the 99-year-old group he leads, Ezra.

In a letter January to Poland’s ambassador in Israel, he cited fear for visitors’ safety and what he called Poland’s “complicity” in the Holocaust, including by “Polish guards.”

De Malach’s letter may be selective and factually inaccurate (in addition to many informers in Nazi-occupied Poland, thousands of Poles risked their lives to save Jews. None of them served as guards in Nazi camps).

But it nonetheless illustrates how the row over the new law, which critics say whitewashes the role of Polish collaborators and hampers discussion about it, is causing some delegation organizers and participants to re-evaluate a pilgrimage with significant financial components that has connected Jews and Poles for some 30 years.

Other trip organizers are considering changes, including Rabbi Boruch Gorin, a senior aide to one of Russia’s chief rabbis, Berel Lazar. Lazar’s Chabad-affiliated Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia annually sends hundreds of young Jews to visit the former Auschwitz camp as part of its Eurostars program.

Gorin won’t consider a boycott of Poland, saying “We shouldn’t change how we commemorate our relatives to punish any political entity, these should be kept as two separate things.” But he spoke about other sites in Poland that could explore the complicated role of non-Jewish Poles during the Holocaust, where the Nazis killed 3 million non-Jewish Poles in addition to 3 million Jewish ones. They include Jedwabne, where Polish villagers in 1941 butchered hundreds of Jews with little or no intervention by the Germans, and Kielce, a village where dozens of Jews who had returned from the camps were lynched and killed by locals in 1946.

“Maybe considering the assault on [the] historical record, it’s time to consider adding sites that are relevant to this cruelty by Poles to the list of destinations in Poland,” Gorin said.

Separately, Moshe Azman, a chief rabbi of Ukraine, is lobbying to have commemorative trips from Israel moved to Ukraine to punish Poland for its law on rhetoric about the Holocaust.

“Ukraine has many places fit for a March of the Living,” Azman wrote in January to Israel’s education minister, Naftali Bennett, “where Jews suffered and were murdered in a terrible tragedy.”

March of the Living is perhaps the best known purveyor of commemorative trips to Auschwitz for Jewish youth, and while it opposes the Polish law, it has no plans to discontinue or re-route its pilgrimages.

“Now, as much as ever, we believe our mission is of the utmost importance,” Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, president of International March of the Living, said in a statement Feb. 8.

March of the Living brings some 12,000 participants from all over the world for a commemorative march in April that has been taking place since 1988. The participants march almost two miles from the Auschwitz camp to the one at Birkenau, both in the same complex. Many of the participants pray. Hundreds wear Israeli flags, which organizers distribute to participants.

Aharon Tamir, deputy chairman of the March of the Living, said Ezra’s boycott of Poland trips is unusual and doubted there would be any significant decline in the number of Israelis and Jews visiting the country.

In addition to March of the Living, Israeli high schools are sending approximately 25,000 students annually on trips to Poland.

“There may be a few individuals who choose to stay away, but overall participation is only growing,” he told JTA. “If anything, the fight against this law, which I don’t agree with, only illustrates how important it is for Jews to come and preserve the memory of the Holocaust against any threat. We’re not considering stopping the march or even changing anything about it.”

The sheer impact of paying witness to the sites where the Holocaust took place may outweigh educators’ qualms about visiting or spending money in Poland. One recent participant in the Russian Eurostars trip, Sergei Atyeh Zolotov of the city of Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East, said of the visit to Auschwitz: “It burned a hole in my soul. It made me feel what the Jewish tradition of survival and renewal is about.”

His reaction is typical of Russian visitors to the camp.

“Israelis’ first thought is often ‘thank God we have a country,'” said Gorin, the leader of Eurostars. “But Russian Jews often think first: ‘It could have been me who was murdered here.'”

The legislation in Poland, which Gorin called “insane,” is designed to “obscure the historical facts that many Poles showed unspeakable cruelty to Jews during the Holocaust, just as other people from other nationalities did.”

Gorin’s anger at the new law is shared by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who suggested it was intended to “subvert the memory of the Holocaust.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also opposed it.

In a further deterioration in Israeli-Polish ties over the law, Netanyahu later condemned as “outrageous” the assertions by his Polish counterpart, who noted there were also “Jewish criminals” who participated in the Holocaust. An Israeli government delegation was in Poland this week for a meeting with representatives of Poland’s ruling party, the nationalist Law and Justice, which championed the law.

Those suggesting alternatives to Poland for those wishing to commemorate the Holocaust include Yoram Yovel, a well-known psychiatrist and columnist for Israel’s Ynet news site. He supports dropping commemorative trips in Europe for domestic excursions to Israel’s many Holocaust museums and communities founded by survivors.

“It’s time to come home from anti-Semitic Europe,” wrote Yovel, who is a son of the late influential philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz.

Like Azman, some think trip organizers should consider other countries, like Ukraine.

But other sites could be complicated as well.

Changing Poland for Ukraine makes “little sense,” Gorin said. Ukraine’s government has been accused of venerating war criminals and downplaying their complicity in the Holocaust in the name of rising nationalism.

Ukraine also has laws, passed in relative silence in 2015, that criminalize “insulting the honor” of militiamen who collaborated with the Nazis — including in murdering Jews. The Nazis recruited Ukrainians to help with the business of murdering Jews — unlike in Poland, whose citizens were not allowed to carry arms or organize themselves in military frameworks.

Azman wrote that the switch would be a “fine” imposed against Poland — an obvious reference to the millions of dollars brought in by people who come on delegations to Auschwitz.

Indeed, since the fall of communism in Poland, a major tourism industry has evolved around Holocaust. Over a million people each year visit the Auschwitz museum near the southern city of Krakow. Several hotels have been built near the former death camp, and locals from the nearby town of Oswiecim charge Western prices for apartments on the Airbnb hosting website.

And some think that, if anything, such trips instill misplaced hostility toward the Poles for what was a German Nazi enterprise.

“These trips take teenagers to Poland and dump them at Auschwitz, where many of them have scarring emotional experiences,” said Tomer Keret, an Israeli tour guide from Jerusalem with Polish roots.

Several years ago, Keret started a group on Facebook called Polish Roots that now has several thousand members.

“Of course they associate the Holocaust only with Poland, which they blame for the genocide,” he said. “Then when they’re older they enjoy dancing in discotheques in Berlin.”

Any commemoration trip to Europe, Keret said, “needs to focus on Germany, the nation that is beyond question responsible for the Holocaust.”
Hours after the Polish so-called Holocaust Law about discussing of historical facts takes effect, the Polish League Against Defamation sues Argentinian newspaper Página/12, which it accuses of suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.