WARSAW--Polish lawmakers approved a bill on Thursday that would impose jail terms for suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust, drawing concern from the United States and outrage from Israel, which denounced "any attempt to challenge historical truth".
Poland's ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) says the bill is needed to protect Poland's reputation and ensure historians recognise that Poles as well as Jews perished under the Nazis. Israeli officials said it criminalises basic historical facts.
The Senate voted on the bill in the early hours on Thursday and it will now be sent to President Andrzej Duda, who has 21 days to decide whether to sign it into law. "Death and suffering in German Nazi concentration camps were a shared experience of Jews, Poles and many other nations," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said, adding that Poland would never limit debate about the Holocaust.
Deputy Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said on Wednesday before the vote that, "It is a duty of every Pole to defend the good name of Poland."
Duda has not said whether he will sign the bill, but has suggested he sympathises with its aims. He told state television on Monday: "The matter needs to be explained calmly, but we absolutely cannot backtrack."
The bill would impose three years prison sentences for mentioning the term "Polish death camps", although it says scientific research into World War Two would not be constrained.
Israel "adamantly opposes" the bill's approval, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. "Israel views with utmost gravity any attempt to challenge historical truth. No law will change the facts," ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said on Twitter.
Israeli Housing Minister Yoav Galant, one of several cabinet ministers to denounce the bill, told Israel's Army Radio that he considered it "de facto Holocaust denial". Israel also requested on Thursday the postponement of a planned visit next week by the head of Poland's National Security Bureau.
The Polish bill has come at a time when right wing, anti-immigrant parties like PiS have been in the ascendancy in Europe, especially in the former Communist countries of the east. EU officials have expressed alarm over the PiS administration in Poland, which they say has undermined the rule of law by exerting pressure over the courts and media.
The socially conservative, nationalist PiS has reignited debate on the Holocaust as part of a campaign to fuel patriotism since sweeping into power in 2015.
