WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's president on Tuesday signed legislation that outlaws blaming Poland as a nation for Holocaust crimes committed by Nazi Germany, defying both criticism from Israel and a warning from the U.S.
But President Andrzej Duda said he would also ask Poland's constitutional court to evaluate the bill -- leaving open the possibility it would be amended.
As written, the legislation calls for prison terms of up to three years for attributing the crimes of Nazi Germany to Poland. The law takes effect 14 days after it's officially published, but it wasn't immediately clear when that will be.
The proposed law has fueled a diplomatic crisis with Israel, which fears it would stifle discussion about the Holocaust and enable Poland to whitewash the role of the Poles who killed or denounced Jews during the German occupation of Poland during World War II.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it would continue to communicate with Poland despite its reservations about the law. It said it hopes Duda's decision to ask the constitutional court to evaluate the bill will allow both sides to "agree on changes and corrections." That language seemed more conciliatory than earlier statements.
The United States also strongly opposed the legislation, warning that it could hurt Poland's strategic relations with both Israel and the U.S.
Holocaust scholars and institutions have denounced the law as well, arguing that its unclear wording creates the potential for abuse. Polish officials note that a provision in the law exempts historic research and works of art.
Polish officials have long argued a Holocaust speech law is needed to fight expressions like "Polish death camps" for the Nazi camps where Jews and others were exterminated.
Defending the law, Duda said it would not prohibit Holocaust survivors and witnesses from talking about crimes committed by individual Poles.
"We do not deny that there were cases of huge wickedness," he said in a speech.
But he said the point of the law is to prevent the Polish nation as a whole from being wrongly accused of institutionalized participation in the Holocaust. He recalled that the Polish government at the time had to go into exile, and Polish officials struggled to inform the world that the Germans were putting Jews to death at Auschwitz and elsewhere in occupied Poland.
Information for this article was contributed by Aron Heller and Josef Federman of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/07/2018