Polish Death Camps Obrona
December 2019 (REVISED) Why it matters not to refer to Nazi German camps as “Polish” The story you won’t find in the North American mainstream media Poland’s new anti-defamation law has sparked an avalanche of alarmist commentary and harsh criticism.1 Extravagant claims have been made about the scope and intent of the law as, allegedly, suppressing discussion of Second World War crimes committed by Poles. Outrageous charges, often accompanied by unbridled hysteria, are being levelled against the Polish government, which is accused of “Holocaust denial” and even anti-Semitism. The Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee of the Knesset declared that “the Polish law is a crime and we will not allow it to happen.” Jack Rosen, President of the American Jewish Congress and chairman of the American Council for World Jewry, goes even further, claiming that Poland has put itself “in the same team as Iran and other Islamic terror states and the alt-right in the US and Holocaust deniers.” The anti-defamation law has also released pent-up aggression against Poles. However, the North American media rarely, if ever, mentions this aspect in the tsunami of articles critical of Poland. They show no apparent concern for the many rancorous statements by prominent Jews mentioned later on. In fact, the 1 On January 26, 2018 and February 1, 2018, respectively, the Seym (lower chamber) and Senate of the Polish Parliament passed legislation, commonly referred to as an “anti-defamation law,” which was proclaimed into law on February 6, 2019 by Poland’s President. It was an amendment to the 1998 Act on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation.
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