Polish official sacked after calling Holocaust law “stupid”| Latest News Headlines

WARSAW, Poland – A Polish diplomat tasked with improving contacts with Jews around the world has been fired after criticizing his own government’s approach to regulating Holocaust speech, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday .

Jaroslaw Nowak, the plenipotentiary in charge of contacts with the Jewish diaspora, described as “stupid” a law on the speech of the Holocaust passed by the party in power in his country.

Nowak also said Poland should pass a property restitution law, a statement implicating further criticism of the ruling authorities, who recently passed a law reducing the chances of restitution or compensation for those who had seized property. by the Communists. Among those affected are Holocaust survivors and their heirs.

Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau sacked Nowak on Saturday, ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina said on Twitter on Monday.

The development comes just days after Poland recalled its new ambassador to Prague after that diplomat criticized his own country – in this case, in relation to Poland’s approach to a dispute with the Czech Republic over ‘a state-run coal mine.

Nowak’s sacking came a day after the publication of an interview with Jewish News UK in which Nowak said that legislation passed in 2018 to ban certain statements about Poland and the Holocaust “is one of the most recent amendments. stupidest ever brought by a law ”.

The legislation was aimed at tackling false claims that Poland, a victim of Nazi Germany, was responsible for the Holocaust. This outraged Israel, where many felt it was an attempt to whitewash the fact that some Poles killed Jews during German occupation in World War II.

The legislation originally prohibited blaming Poland as a nation for Holocaust crimes committed by Nazi Germany, with prison terms of up to three years for falsely attributing German crimes to the Poland. It was then amended to remove the penal provisions.

Last year, Poland also approved a law that severely restricts the rights of Holocaust survivors or their descendants to recover property seized by the country’s former communist regime.

This law sparked a serious diplomatic dispute with Israel which remains unresolved.

“I think that at some point Poland will really have to come to the conclusion that we have to do something about” the restitution, said Nowak.

Nowak has been involved in the Polish-Jewish dialogue since the 1980s. He becomes the plenipotentiary for contacts with the Jewish diaspora in July.