Foreign Affairs

Poland Will No Longer Jail Citizens Who Suggest Country’s Complicity In Holocaust

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Poland’s lawmakers backtracked on a controversial law Wednesday and will no longer allow jail sentences of up to three years for citizens who accuse the country of being complicit in Nazi perpetration of the Holocaust.

Even with the “correction,” as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the change, accusing Poland of complicity with the Nazis in World War II is a civil offense that can be punished with a fine, according to the BBC.

The law did not apply to accusing Polish individuals of complicity, and it had exceptions for artistic and educational purposes, according to NPR.

The law upset the United States and Israel when it was passed in February, according to the Associated Press.

Israel has “no tolerance for the distortion of the truth, the rewriting of history and the denial of the Holocaust,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Jan. 28 after a proposed version of the law was announced.

Netanyahu announced that he was “pleased” about the alterations made to the law on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

The Nazis murdered approximately 3 million Jewish citizens of Poland during World War II, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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