Several high-ranking Israeli politicians have made all kinds of declarations lately in regard to Poland's culpability for the crimes of the Holocaust.
Last week, Polish President Andrzej Duda ratified a law criminalizing suggestions that Poland bore any responsibility for the crimes against humanity committed by Nazi Germany on its soil. This legislation has caused friction between Poland and Israel over the last month.
Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid made a point of saying "Polish death camps," a term now illegal in Poland, and even demanded an apology from the Polish Embassy for daring to disagree with his unrestrained attacks.
In addition, MK Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union) responded to the Polish Holocaust law by introducing his own legislation to criminalize the "denial or downplaying of the involvement of Nazi accomplices and collaborators."
The way things stand, I feel an obligation to voice my reservations over these irresponsible initiatives and to set the historical record straight. During World War II, the Polish nation was a victim of foreign aggression. For the fourth time in its history, Poland endured partition and foreign rule – the cruelest yet. The Polish state was dissolved and its leadership was cut off at the head when its elite was systematically exterminated. National Socialist ideology saw the Poles as an inferior race.
During that period, millions of Poles lost their lives. The Polish nation never surrendered to Nazi aggression, fighting courageously against the invasion and rebelling against the occupation. At no point did the Poles agree to become a puppet state. The legitimate representation of the Polish people remained the Polish Republic's government in exile, which very early on labored to bring world attention to Nazi Germany's extermination of Jews.
As was the case in almost every area under National Socialist occupation, some Poles did collaborate with the occupying power, out of malice, greed or fear. Some helped murder Jews. Polish citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were among the collaborators. Totalitarian oppression turns some ordinary people into heroes, but it turns others into spineless miscreants. Moreover, it is wrong to attribute collective moral responsibility to a people who lacked any semblance of a legitimate authority. Spreading blame like this serves only those who wish to distort the distinction between the guilty and the innocent, soiling the reputation of the blameless with the deeds of the wicked.
Over the past 30 years, Poland has become a bustling democracy. Like every democratic state, it is home to discussions and debates over various issues and opinions on the reasoning behind or suitability of this or that piece of legislation. The deep friendship between Israel and Poland in recent decades is a wonderful example of a proper way for two democratic peoples to conduct relations with each other. We must not allow unfounded political opportunism to harm this friendship.
