PhotoIt is baffling why Poland’s nationalist-controlled Parliament would mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day — the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp on Polish soil — with a needless, foolish and insulting draft bill that would penalize any suggestion of complicity by the Polish state or the Polish nation in the Nazi death machine. Whatever dubious motives are behind this measure, Poland would do well to erase it as quickly as possible. No doubt it pains Poles, whose country was overrun and occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II, when foreigners refer to Auschwitz and other extermination centers the Nazis set up in Poland as “Polish death camps.” They were Nazi death camps. Along with three million Polish Jews — about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust — at least 1.9 million Polish gentiles were killed. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services.

Source: New York Times January 30, 2018 00:11 UTC