Polish Memory Law

Polish Memory Law, officially called the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance of 2018 in Poland, is a partly repealed law that would have made it criminal to claim that Poland was responsible for the Holocaust. The terms that made such speech criminal were removed after international protests.

Overview

Scholars worldwide see the Law as part of the Law and Justice party-led government's policy to present ethnic Poles as the only victims and heroes in Nazi-occupied Poland, and a violation of freedom of speech due to its potential of suppressing discussions on Polish collaboration in Nazi-occupied Poland.

Bill

The proposed law changes a previous law known as the Act of 18 December 1998 on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Dz.U. 1998 nr 155 poz. 1016). Articles added in February 2018 included:

Protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation shall be governed by the provisions of the Civil Code Act of 23 April 1964 (Polish Journal of Laws of 2016, items 380, 585 and 1579) on the protection of personal rights. A court action aimed at protecting the Republic of Poland’s or the Polish Nation’s reputation may be brought by a non-governmental organisation within the remit of its statutory activities. Any resulting compensation or damages shall be awarded to the State Treasury.

A court action aimed at protecting the Republic of Poland’s or the Polish Nation’s reputation may also be brought by the Institute of National Remembrance. In such cases, the Institute of National Remembrance shall have the capacity to be a party to court proceedings.

1. Whoever claims, publicly and contrary to the facts, that the Polish Nation or the Republic of Poland is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich, as specified in Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal enclosed to the International agreement for the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis, signed in London on 8 August 1945 (Polish Journal of Laws of 1947, item 367), or for other felonies that constitute crimes against peace, crimes against humanity or war crimes, or whoever otherwise grossly diminishes the responsibility of the true perpetrators of said crimes—shall be liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to 3 years. The sentence shall be made public.

2. If the act specified in clause 1 is committed unintentionally, the perpetrator shall be liable to a fine or a restriction of liberty.

3. No offence is committed if the criminal act specified in clauses 1 and 2 is committed in the course of one's artistic or academic activity.'

The crimes of Ukrainian nationalists and members of Ukrainian organizations collaborating with the Third German Reich, as defined in the Act, are acts committed by Ukrainian nationalists in the years 1925–1950, involving the use of violence, terror or other forms of violation of human rights, against individuals or ethnic groups. One of the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists and members of Ukrainian organizations collaborating with the Third German Reich is their involvement in the extermination of the Jewish population and genocide on citizens of the Second Polish Republic in Volhynia and Eastern Lesser Poland."

Amendment

The US Department of State opposed the bill, and the Polish government removed Articles 55a and 55b from the bill, meaning that it would not become criminal to claim that Poland was responsible for the Holocaust. In June 2018, the Polish parliament took merely 8.5 hours to pass the bill. The bill's passage makes it a civil offence for someone associated with Poland to make the said claim.

Reactions

Poland

According to a survey from February 2018, 40% of Poles supported the criminal penalties in the bill, while 51% believed that the issue should be handled differently. Research showed that the Law had the opposite effect of raising global searches for the phrase "Polish death camps" ninefold, while increasing antisemitic speech on social media.

Scholars

Legal scholars Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Grażyna Baranowska, and Anna Wójcik state that with the revised bill, "the risk of violations of individual rights and freedoms remains high". Meanwhile, legal scholar Patrycja Grzebyk said:

A scientist who would like to investigate crimes committed by Polish citizens or the scale of Polish collaboration risks the loss of his time, money and reputation in lengthy proceedings against her/him commenced by someone who feels insulted." Even the revised version of the law is inconsistent with international law and human rights standards, as it "limit[s] freedom of speech and scientific activity in a disproportional way and entitle[s] NGOs to bring a lawsuit on behalf of the Polish state or nation.

Legal scholar Uladzislau Belavusau said:

[t]he fears that the 2018 Law may negatively impact on freedom of expression about Polish history have solid foundations [...] Potentially anybody who expresses views that are counter to the official version of history recognised by the Polish State could fall under its scope.

Legal scholar Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz also said:

The new law politicizes historical discussion and instrumentalizes law to achieve the desired reading of history and the past [...] is the most recent proof that in Poland the past continues to be seen as a collection of indisputable truths, not open to divergent interpretations and historical debate.

Furthermore, constitutional law scholar Wojciech Sadurski said:

[t]he chilling effect of such penal and civil sanctions upon scholarly or journalistic debates regarding the darker sides of Polish history is obvious [...] concerns not so much statements of fact, but rather an opinion: an opinion about (the alleged) responsibility of, say, passive onlookers. To punish for an opinion is an anathema to any system of freedom of expression.

In addition, mathematician Stanisław Krajewski, co-chair of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, said:

“ The law would become a blunt instrument for paralysing and punishing anyone you don't like [...] the government's harsh, dismissive reaction would encourage violence against Jews. ”

Religious groups

The Polish Bishops' Conference noted a rise in antisemitism after the bill was passed, declaring the phenomenon "contrary to the Christian tenet of loving one's neighbor". The Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland said the bill had led to a "growing wave of intolerance, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism", making many members fearful for their safety.

United States

Government

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was disappointed with the bill, saying that the "enactment of this law adversely affects freedom of speech and academic inquiry." The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum said that the Law could not secure a future for Holocaust education, scholarship, and remembrance, hinting at the chances of intimidation, politicization and self-censorship.

Scholars

In February 2018, the American Historical Association (AHA) stated that the bill was "a threat both to historians' freedom of speech and to the future of historical scholarship". The AHA was supported by 50 academic organizations. The Polish Center for Holocaust Research called the Law an "unprecedented intrusion into the debate about the Polish history". Jurist Alexander Tsesis said:

[The Law] restricts the acquisition, expression, and dissemination of knowledge [...] its ambiguity makes it uncertain who will be punished and for what communications [... cause a chilling effect on] satire, political commentary, historical analysis, and eyewitness testimony [...] Poland's effort to control the public spread of information is likely to lead to misleading conclusions that downplay victims' sufferings and incite hate propaganda.

A letter signed by prominent figures in February 2018, including American historian Anne Applebaum and the third President of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski, read:

“ Why should the victims and witnesses of the Holocaust have to watch what they say for fear of being arrested, and will the testimony of a Jewish survivor who "feared Poles" be a punishable offence? ”

Advocacy groups

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) said:

[w]hile we remember the brave Poles who saved Jews, the role of some Poles in murdering Jews cannot be ignored [... we are] firmly opposed to legislation that would penalize claims that Poland or Polish citizens bear responsibility for any Holocaust crimes.

Canada

Scholars

In his book Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust, Jeffrey Kopstein of the University of Toronto said:

[Their goal] is clear: to restrict discussion of Polish complicity [...] Poland's current government will likely face the unpalatable prospect of enforcing an unenforceable law and denying what the mainstream scholarly community has increasingly shown to be true: Some Poles were complicit in the Holocaust.

Israel

Government

The law damaged Israel–Poland relations. Israel's Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem said that preserving the memory of the Holocaust takes priority over international relations, saying:

“ Preserving the memory of the Holocaust is a matter beyond the bilateral relationship between Israel and Poland. It is a core issue cutting to the essence of the Jewish people. ”

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Poland of Holocaust denial. Israel's Education and Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett said:

“ This is a shameful disregard of the truth. It is a historic fact that many Poles aided in the murder of Jews, handed them in, abused them, and even killed Jews during and after the Holocaust. ”

Israel's ambassador to Poland opposed the bill, saying that antisemitism in Poland was rising. In response, Jan Żaryn, then a Polish Senator and nationalist historian who made controversial claims about Polish-Jewish history, called for the Israeli ambassador's expulsion.

Holocaust museums

Yad Vashem condemned the bill:

“ While "Polish death camps" as a phrase is a historic misrepresentation [... the law is] liable to blur the historical truths regarding the assistance the Germans received from the Polish population during the Holocaust. ”

International

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) expressed regret over Polish President Andrzej Duda's signing of the Law into power, adding that the Law would harm the right to free and open research.

Subsequent events

Repeal of Article 2a

In January 2019, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland ruled the Article 2a void and non-binding.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Polish: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (IPN)
  2. ↑ Polish: Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS)
  3. ↑ Something or someone that one vehemently dislikes. Oxford Languages
  4. ↑ Co-author of the book: Jason Wittenberg of the University of California, Berkeley

References

  1. ↑ "Poland Holocaust law: Government U-turn on jail threat". BBC News. 2018-06-27. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
  2. 1 2 3
    • Noack, Rick (February 2, 2018). "Poland's Senate passes Holocaust complicity bill despite concerns from U.S., Israel". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
    • Hackmann, Jörg (2018). "Defending the "Good Name" of the Polish Nation: Politics of History as a Battlefield in Poland, 2015–18". Journal of Genocide Research. 20 (4): 587–606. doi:10.1080/14623528.2018.1528742. S2CID 81922100.
    • Robert Rozett, “Competitive Victimhood and Holocaust Distortion,” The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, XVI (2022); “Distorting the Holocaust and Whitewashing History: Toward a Typology,” XIII: 1 (2019); Yehuda Bauer, “Creating a “Usable” Past: On Holocaust Denial and Distortion,” XIV: 2 (2022); and Jan Grabowski, “The Holocaust and Poland's 'History Policy'” X: 3 (2016).
    • Joanna Beata Michlic, “The Politics of the Memorialisation of the Holocaust in Poland: Reflections on the Current Misuses of the History of Rescue,” Jewish Historical Studies—Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, LIII: 1 (2022); Piotr Forecki, Po Jedwabnem: Anatomia pamięci funkcjonalnej (Kraków, 2018); Jan Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne (Princeton, 2001).
  3. 1 2
  4. ↑ "Ustawa z dnia 18 grudnia 1998 r. o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej — Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu" (PDF). Dziennik Ustaw (in Polish). No. 155. December 19, 1998. 1016. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Full text of Poland's controversial Holocaust legislation". February 1, 2018. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  6. ↑ Kanika, Gauba (July 11, 2019). "Rethinking 'Memory Laws' from a Comparative Perspective". The Indian Yearbook of Comparative Law 2018. pp. 233–249. doi:10.1007/978-981-13-7052-6_10. ISBN 978-981-13-7051-9. Retrieved May 31, 2025.
  7. ↑ "Ustawa z dnia 26 stycznia 2018 r. o zmianie ustawy o Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej – Komisji Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, ustawy o grobach i cmentarzach wojennych, ustawy o muzeach oraz ustawy o odpowiedzialności podmiotów zbiorowych za czyny zabronione pod groźbą kary" (PDF). orka.sejm.gov.pl (in Polish). Sejm of the Republic of Poland. January 29, 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-04-29. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
  8. ↑ "Szklarski, Bohdan, and Piotr Ilowski. "Searching for Solid Ground in Polish-American Relations in the Second Year of the Trump Administration." (2019): 65-82" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-08-27. Retrieved 2019-08-27.
  9. 1 2 Jaraczewski, Jakub (July 23, 2018). "Fast Random-Access Memory (Laws) – The June 2018 Amendments to the Polish "Holocaust Law"". Verfassungsblog. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  10. ↑ The amendment to the Institute of National Remembrance act Centre for Public Opinion Research
  11. ↑ "Analiza skutków noweli ustawy o IPN: wzmożenie antysemickie w debacie publicznej". Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich (in Polish). June 13, 2018. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  12. ↑ Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Grażyna Baranowska, Anna Wójcik (2019). "Law-Secured Narratives of the Past in Poland in Light of International Human Rights Law Standards". Polish Yearbook of International Law: 59–72. doi:10.24425/pyil.2019.129606. S2CID 217067626.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. ↑ Grzebyk, Patrycja (2018). "Amendments of January 2018 to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Light of International Law". Polish Yearbook of International Law. 37: 287–300. doi:10.7420/pyil2017o. As a result of the amendments, Ukrainians are the only national group directlymentioned in the Act as perpetrators of crimes, and the Act does not refer even toGermans or Russians but instead prefers to speak about crimes of the "Third Reich" or of the "communists." Not surprisingly, Ukrainians have felt offended by this "distinction."
  14. ↑ Belavusau, Uladzislau (December 12, 2018). "The Rise of Memory Laws in Poland: An Adequate Tool to Counter Historical Disinformation?". Security and Human Rights. 29 (1–4): 36–54. doi:10.1163/18750230-02901011. ISSN 1875-0230. S2CID 216759925. The argument of the Polish government that all Western European countries have been legally protecting the memory of the Holocaust in the same way is at best misleading. The closest relative of the 2018 Law is not a standard provision in continental Europe's criminal codes about punitive measures against Holocaust deniers. Rather, the closest sibling of the Law are parts of the Turkish and Russian penal codes. The way the Law frames the defence of collective Polish dignity in a historical context is foremost reminiscent of the notorious provision in the Turkish criminal code (Article 301), which criminalises denigration of the Turkish nation and is particularly used to silence people speaking out against the massacres of Armenians and other minorities by the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
  15. ↑ Koncewicz, Tomasz Tadeusz (2018). "On the Politics of Resentment, Mis-memory, and Constitutional Fidelity: The Demise of the Polish Overlapping Consensus?". Law and Memory: Towards Legal Governance of History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 263–290. ISBN 978-1-107-18875-4.
  16. ↑ Sadurski, Wojciech (May 16, 2019). Poland's Constitutional Breakdown. Oxford University Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-0-19-884050-3.
  17. ↑ Luxmoore, Jonathan (14 March 2018). "Polish archbishop answers Holocaust law critics". The Tablet. Retrieved 2018-05-12.[permanent dead link]
  18. ↑ "Catholic, Jewish leaders in Poland seek to reduce tensions". The Washington Post. 15 March 2018. Archived from the original on March 15, 2018.
  19. ↑ Masters, James; Mortensen, Antonia (February 20, 2018). "Poland's Jewish groups say Jews feel unsafe since new Holocaust law". CNN. Retrieved November 11, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Oświadczenie organizacji żydowskich do opinii publicznej / Open statement of Polish Jewish organizations to the public opinion". Jewish.org.pl (in Polish). Retrieved March 13, 2018.
  21. ↑ "Museum Statement on Amendment to Poland's Act on the Institute of National Remembrance". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. July 6, 2018. Retrieved June 1, 2025.
  22. ↑ "Advocacy Briefs: AHA Condemns Polish Law Criminalizing Public Discussion of Polish Complicity in Nazi War Crimes | Perspectives on History | AHA". www.historians.org. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  23. ↑ "Historians fear 'censorship' under Poland's Holocaust law". Times Higher Education (THE). February 21, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  24. ↑ Tsesis, Alexander (2020). "Genocide Censorship and Genocide Denial". In Grzebyk, Patrycja (ed.). Responsibility for Negation of International Crimes. Warsaw: Institute of Justice in Warsaw. p. 117. ISBN 9788366344433. Far more controversial than genocide denial laws, however, have been national efforts to censor evidence of complicity to commit genocide, and this is the case with civil legislation in Poland and the criminal law in Turkey... The newest version of the law, passed on June 6, 2019, continues to have a civil cause of action that can be brought by private citizens of the Law on Institute of National Remembrance (Art. 53o and 53p). The problem, then, has not been fully resolved, despite the 2019 changes, because defense of nationalistic honor continues to function as a censor on speech. The Law on Institute of National Remembrance is likely to have some of the same negative impacts as the Turkish censorship statute protecting national honor.
  25. ↑ "Polish law denies reality of Holocaust". The Guardian. February 5, 2018. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
  26. ↑ "AJC Opposes Polish Effort to Criminalize Claims of Holocaust Responsibility". American Jewish Committee. January 27, 2018. Retrieved November 11, 2018 – via PRNewswire.
  27. ↑ Tibon, Amir (January 27, 2018). "As Poland's New Holocaust Law Causes Storm, U.S. Urges 'Never Again' on Holocaust Remembrance Day". Haaretz. Archived from the original on November 11, 2018. Retrieved November 11, 2018.
  28. ↑ Wittenberg, Jason; Kopstein, Jeffrey (2 February 2018). "Yes, some Poles were Nazi collaborators. The Polish Parliament is trying to legislate that away". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2018-02-02. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
  29. ↑ Halon, Eytan (March 3, 2018). "Argentina newspaper first target of controversial Polish Holocaust law". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
  30. ↑ Eglash, Ruth; Selk, Avi (January 28, 2018). "Israel and Poland try to tamp down tensions after Poland's 'death camp' law sparks Israeli outrage". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2018-01-28.
  31. ↑ "Israel criticises Poland over draft Holocaust legislation". The Guardian. Associated Press (AP). January 27, 2018. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
  32. 1 2 "Polish senator calls for Israeli ambassador's expulsion". Jewish News. March 11, 2018. Retrieved May 29, 2025. A Polish senator for the ruling party said he would not shake hands with Israel's ambassador and that he favors her expulsion from Poland for saying anti-Semitism was on the rise there [. ...] The crisis began with the passing of a law in January that criminalises blaming Poland for Nazi crimes. Several Jewish groups said the law impedes open debate and risks censoring research. Some critics of the law said it whitewashes what they called Polish complicity.
  33. ↑ Grabowski, Jan; Klein, Shira (February 9, 2023). "Wikipedia's Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust". The Journal of Holocaust Research. 37 (2): 133–190. doi:10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939. Retrieved October 24, 2024. Four distortions dominate Wikipedia's coverage of Polish–Jewish wartime history: a false equivalence narrative suggesting that Poles and Jews suffered equally in World War II; a false innocence narrative, arguing that Polish antisemitism was marginal, while the Poles' role in saving Jews was monumental; antisemitic tropes insinuating that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo–Bolshevism), that money-hungry Jews controlled or still control Poland, and that Jews bear responsibility for their own persecution.
    [...]
    The Polish government's resolve to control the past culminated with [...] the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance [...] penalizes those who 'slander the good name of the Polish nation' and who 'blame the Polish society for crimes committed by the Nazi Third Reich.'
    [...]
    Jan Żaryn, a fervent nationalist, a darling of Polish right-wing populists, and the current chief of the newly established, government-funded Roman Dmowski Institute of National Thought (Dmowski was a prewar Polish politician, an unrepentant antisemite, and a great admirer of Adolf Hitler).
  34. ↑ "How Ewa Kurek, the Favorite Historian of the Polish Far Right, Promotes Her Distorted Account of the Holocaust". Tablet. May 3, 2018. Retrieved May 29, 2025. [Ewa] Kurek was not the only participant in the Smolensk commemoration with a history of problematic statements about Jews [. ...] Jan Zaryn, who was also listed as attending the event, is a far-right parliamentarian who introduced a resolution denying most Polish responsibility for the 1968 purges, and has called for the prosecution of the Princeton Holocaust historian Jan Tomasz Gross.
  35. ↑ "Yad Vashem: Poland Holocaust law risks 'serious distortion' of Polish complicity". The Times of Israel. January 27, 2018. Retrieved 2019-05-16.
  36. ↑ "Statement on President Duda's decision to sign law". International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. 2018. Retrieved June 1, 2025.
  37. ↑ "Ekspert: orzeczenie Trybunału Konstytucyjnego ws. nowelizacji ustawy o IPN może otworzyć drogę do dyskusji" (in Polish). Polskie Radio 24. January 17, 2019. Retrieved 2019-05-16.