[ad_1]
Many Holocaust survivors felt betrayed by a joint statement
issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki aimed at ending a dispute over the Holocaust legislation in Poland.
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum, criticized the statement,
which was published in newspapers in Israel and abroad on Thursday, as historically inaccurate, particularly challenging the validity of the badertion of the leaders that the Polish clandestine and the government in exile in the Second World War are came to the aid of the Jews in the face of death by the Nazis.
Many Holocaust survivors stated that the state of Israel should not have reached an agreement with Poland over the controversial law of the European nation over l & # 39; Holocaust.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky, Getty Images)
Michael Rosenthal, a survivor of the Holocaust of Ukraine, described this statement as "a betrayal of the Jewish people, Jews from Poland and Jews from all over Europe who were murdered in the United States. Holocaust. "
"This agreement is bad and the state of Israel should not have co-operated with it: the truth can not be denied, and we can not be forced to not tell the truth "There were Poles who turned into Jews, it's a fact," he told Ynet. While Rosenthal admitted that not all Poles were turning to Jews, "they were certain who were saving Jews – a Polish woman saved my aunt and her daughter," he argued that "Poland has anti-Semitism in this day. "
Lutza Mardler, 85, a Holocaust survivor whose family fled Poland to Romania after anti-Semitism spread there before the Second World War, said: " When I heard this on the radio, I thought How can this be? How can the Prime Minister sign such an agreement with Poland?
"After all that happened and all that we went through during the Second World War with the Poles, which was very serious, we are now in agreement with them, that is to say. It's incredible, they've all been dead there, "she said.
"I chill just by talking, just remembering what happened and what I heard No one gives us more respect for the survivors of the Holocaust, "she laments.
Auschwitz (Photo: AP)
Some survivors prefer to see the glbad half full. Abigail Ben-Nun, an 80-year-old Holocaust survivor, born in Belgium and having survived with her parents and sisters, argued that "the historical facts are in fact true – the Polish government does not believe it. made no active movement, the people themselves were the murderers, they cooperated with the Germans, while the government as a government did not do it.
"A member of the Polish parliament even went to the camps and reported what was going on there during the Holocaust," Ben-Nun continued. "The hatred is towards the Polish people – with the exception of those who were just among the nations – and not the government, contrary to what happened in countries like Belgium or Hungary, where governments cooperated with the Nazi regime. "
"Overall, I think this agreement is positive, despite the great pain that resurfaces every time the subject comes up, it is always painful," she concluded. .
Last week, the conservatives in power in Poland watered down the bill,
which had attracted Israeli and American condemnation, and eliminated the threat of prison sentences for anyone who suggested that the nation was complicit in Nazi crimes against Jews.
During the war, Jews from all over Europe were sent to death camps built and managed by Germans in Nazi-occupied Poland – the largest Jewish community on the continent – Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.
After the amendment of the law, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Polish counterpart Morawiecki said in a statement that their countries were "friends and partners" and rejected the responsibility of Poland or its citizens for the atrocities committed by the Nazis or their collaborators. 19659012]
Their statement continued to praise the Polish government in exile during the war, saying it was trying to "sensitize Western allies to the systematic murder" of Polish Jews.
Netanyahu and Morawiecki also acknowledged "the fact that the structures of the Polish underground state supervised by the Polish government in exile created a mechanism of systematic support and support for the Jewish people".
But Yad Vashem said: his own "thorough examination" showed "that historical badertions – presented as undisputed facts – in the joint statement contain serious errors and deceptions."
"The Polish government in exile, based in London … did not work decisively during the war on behalf of the Jewish citizens of Poland," Yad Vashem said.
"Much of the Polish resistance in its various movements has not only failed to help the Jews, but has also frequently been actively involved in their persecution," he said.
While Yad Vashem severely criticized the statement, one of his most experienced historians, Professor Dina Porat, participated in the committee that had reached an agreement with the Polish government to soften the controversial legislation.
Prof. Yehuda Bauer, one of the best specialists in the Israeli Holocaust, said that although she was well acquainted with Professor Porat, "she did not look to me or to me." Did not talk about the subject, so I can not talk about his motives. "
[19659041] Yehuda Bauer (Photo: David Salem) “/>
Prof. Yehuda Bauer (Photo: David Salem)
"The historical facts of this document are completely distorted, so those who signed it must take responsibility," he said.
Prof. Mr. Bauer added that "this statement is a mark of approval to undermine the freedom of expression and freedom of research." Any Polish bureaucrat who learns, for example, that Jews were stolen in his hometown during the Holocaust, will not be able to expose the truth, and if he does, he should pay a fine. "
The ramification of the agreement with Poland, he said, would be that "if in the future we turn to America and Europe." complain about something that the Polish people did during the Holocaust, they would tell us: what do you want? Your government signed this document. "
Poland remains firm on the joint declaration.
"For us, the position expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is binding," Deputy Foreign Minister Bartosz Cichocki told the Polish state-run news agency PAP.
The debate around the declaration confirms the need to "strengthen the cooperation of historians, teachers and guides of Polish, Israeli and Jewish museums to protect the truth about the Second World War and the Holocaust, including between the two prime ministers, "he said.
The behavior of Poles during the war became a central theme for the ruling Law and Justice Party, which argues that previous liberal governments in Warsaw have tried to teach young people to be ashamed of their history.
Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect their Jewish neighbors. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 has shown that thousands of people have also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them from the Nazi occupiers, questioning the national narrative that Poland was only a victim.
Yad Vashem's Chairman of the Council, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, told Ynet that he had understood where Netanyahu was coming from, that he thought the prime minister's intentions were good. He also pointed to critics of Holocaust survivors after Israel had established diplomatic relations with Germany.
"There are two perspectives here that can not always be reconciled," said Rabbi Lau. "One is diplomatic and political, which focuses on Israeli-Pakistani relations today, in 2018, and the other is emotional and scientific, taken by scholars of history. Jewish World War II, who looks at the past without considering the importance of relations between the two countries – and the first focuses on the present and the future, with a more lenient attitude towards the Polish as individuals. "
Rabbi Israel Meir Lau (Photo: Ido Erez)
Although the two perspectives do not meet, Rabbi Lau says that "everyone has his place and his good intentions".
"Yad Vashem's researchers, who conducted their studies and live this subject for nearly 70 years, determined the" letter of the law "- what happened – what the first Minister acts "beyond the letter of the law" in order to reach agreement between two governments that want to end the Holocaust Holocaust law, which was a wrong like no other, and they do not do not try to give it up. "
Reuters contributed to this story.
