Warsaw, Poland • Poland’s president announced Tuesday that he will sign 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 United States.
But in an unusual move, President Andrzej Duda said he would also ask Poland’s constitutional court to evaluate the bill — theoretically opening the way for the country’s parliament to amend it.
As currently written, the legislation calls for prison terms of up to three years for falsely attributing the crimes of Nazi Germany to Poland. Poland’s nationalist authorities describe it as an attempt to protect the country’s reputation from what it believes is confusion about who bears responsibility for Auschwitz and other death camps Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland.