WARSAW, Poland — Fifty-nine U.S. senators have called on the Polish prime minister to support legislation that would allow Holocaust victims and their heirs to receive compensation for property that was seized by the Germans during World War II and later nationalized by the Communists.

In a letter signed by more than half of the Senate and released Monday, the lawmakers expressed concern about a restitution bill under discussion in Poland that, in its current form, would require that claimants be Polish citizens and limit compensation to spouses, children or grandchildren.

The U.S senators said they are “deeply concerned” because the bill would discriminate against Jewish heirs, many of them Americans.

The effort was led by Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, and Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida. </s> (JTA) — Fifty-nine U.S. senators have co-signed a bipartisan letter urging Poland to amend draft legislation on a restitution bill that they say discriminates against survivors living in America.

The letter sent Monday to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki concerns a measure from October that would require claimants to be citizens living in Poland and excludes all heirs except “first-line heirs,” meaning spouses, children or grandchildren.

“We are deeply concerned that the bill, in its current form, would discriminate against virtually all American survivors and heirs on the basis that they are not currently citizens of Poland and that they were not residents of Poland when their property was nationalized,” the letter says.

The letter comes amid a crisis in Israel’s relations with Poland over the enactment last month of a law that criminalizes blaming Poland for Nazi crimes. Jewish groups, which said the law prevents debate and research into the actions of thousands of Poles who collaborated with the Nazis, also harshly criticized Poland.

According to the Polish media, the country’s most senior leaders are not welcome at the White House because of the legislation.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization welcomed what its chair of operations, Gideon Taylor, called the senators’ “call for justice for Holocaust survivors and their families.” With fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors alive today, “we call on Poland urgently to address this historic wrong,” Taylor said in a statement and thanked the lawmakers.

Noting the part about the first-line heirs, the letters says the provision “would disproportionately impact Jewish victims and their families.”

Israel’s ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, also complained about discrimination in the bill in a rare move by her Foreign Ministry. Israel usually refrains from speaking out publicly about restitution issues.

In their letter, the senators also tied the legislation to the future of U.S.-Poland relations.

“We urge you to work with the Polish Parliament to pass fair and just restitution legislation that would both fully realize the goals of the Terezin Declaration and further strengthen the bond between our countries,” they wrote. </s> Fifty-nine US senators have co-signed a bipartisan letter urging Poland to amend draft legislation on a restitution bill that they say discriminates against survivors living in America.

The letter sent Monday to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki concerns a measure from October that would require claimants to be citizens living in Poland and excludes all heirs except “first-line heirs,” meaning spouses, children or grandchildren.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., co-authored the letter.

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“We are deeply concerned that the bill, in its current form, would discriminate against virtually all American survivors and heirs on the basis that they are not currently citizens of Poland and that they were not residents of Poland when their property was nationalized,” the letter says.

The letter comes amid a crisis in Israel’s relations with Poland over the enactment last month of a law that criminalizes blaming Poland for Nazi crimes. Jewish groups, which said the law prevents debate and research into the actions of thousands of Poles who collaborated with the Nazis, also harshly criticized Poland.

According to the Polish media, the country’s most senior leaders are not welcome at the White House because of the legislation.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization welcomed what its chair of operations, Gideon Taylor, called the senators’ “call for justice for Holocaust survivors and their families.” With fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors alive today, “we call on Poland urgently to address this historic wrong,” Taylor said in a statement and thanked the lawmakers.

Noting the part about the first-line heirs, the letters says the provision “would disproportionately impact Jewish victims and their families.”

Israel’s ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, also complained about discrimination in the bill in a rare move by her Foreign Ministry. Israel usually refrains from speaking out publicly about restitution issues.

In their letter, the senators also tied the legislation to the future of US-Poland relations.

“We urge you to work with the Polish Parliament to pass fair and just restitution legislation that would both fully realize the goals of the Terezin Declaration and further strengthen the bond between our countries,” they wrote.

Restitution experts estimate that following the Holocaust, Jewish individuals and institutions in Poland lost property with a combined value exceeding $1 billion. Poland does not have laws for restitution for privately owned property. It passed a law on communal property in 1997 and has returned some of it, but thousands of claims in that category have gone unaddressed.

About 90 percent of over 3 million Polish Jews were killed in the Holocaust. </s> Fifty-nine U.S. senators have called on the Polish prime minister to support legislation that would allow Holocaust victims and their heirs to receive compensation for property that was seized by the Germans during World War II and later nationalized by the Communists.

In a letter signed by more than half of the Senate and released Monday, the lawmakers expressed concern about a restitution bill under discussion in Poland that, in its current form, would require that claimants be Polish citizens and limit compensation to spouses, children or grandchildren.

“This draft legislation would adversely affect Holocaust victims and their heirs and is therefore of urgent importance to many of our constituents, millions of Americans, and Holocaust survivors around the world,” the senators wrote in the letter to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

The letter was authored by Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, and Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida.

The restitution of prewar property has proven to be a difficult challenge for Poland, which suffered massive destruction during the war and the changes of its borders in the postwar settlement, followed by the nationalization of property by the Communist regime. Those dispossessed included a swath of prewar Polish citizenry, among them many of the Jews who perished in the Holocaust or who fled Poland after the war.

Since the fall of communism, multiple efforts to pass a law that would offer restitution or partial compensation to prewar owners have all failed, with lawmakers balking at the high cost.

Without a systematic law there have been individual efforts, some of them successful, to regain properties. But the process has been marred by irregularities and fraud, with rightful heirs sometimes cheated out of their rights and tenants evicted by new owners.

With ownership of some properties unclear, especially in Warsaw, some buildings are falling into dilapidation while some plots cannot be developed.

The Polish draft legislation is an attempt to finally settle the matter.

The World Jewish Restitution Organization said it welcomed the call by the senators. Its chair of operations, Gideon Taylor, said: “With fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors alive today, we call on Poland urgently to address this historic wrong.”

The law comes as Poland has also seen its ties with the United States and Israel strained over a recently enacted Polish law that would limit some types of Holocaust speech. </s> Fifty-nine US Senators on Monday sent a bipartisan letter to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki urging his government to quickly pass fair legislation regarding restitution, which in its current form, would “discriminate against virtually all American survivors and heirs.”



In the letter, authored by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), the senators wrote that draft legislation regarding restitution of property confiscated during and after the Holocaust would “adversely affect Holocaust victims and their heirs and is therefore of urgent importance to many of our constituents, millions of Americans, and Holocaust survivors around the world."





The Polish Justice Ministry said last month that it was reviewing the draft legislation after the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers returned it to the ministry for reconsideration.The limits of the legislation have also drawn criticism from the Israeli government and the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), which said it would exclude the vast majority of Holocaust survivors and their families.Polish Deputy Justice Minister Patryk Jaki announced in October that the legislative proposals would grant cash compensation to those stripped of their property by the pro-Soviet communist regime that governed Poland following World War II. In many cases, property was initially looted by the Nazis and subsequently seized by the Communists.The draft legislation requires that claimants currently be citizens of Poland, as well as having been residents in Poland at the time that their property was nationalized by the Communist regime.A position paper submitted by the WJRO to the Justice Ministry explains that these provisions would exclude the vast majority of Holocaust survivors and their families.Since the Communist authorities nationalized property between 1944 and 1962, the requirement of residency at that time bars survivors who left Poland during the Holocaust or at any point before the property was nationalized, the WJRO wrote.Furthermore, because most Holocaust survivors and their families do not currently hold Polish citizenship, even those survivors who were still residents and citizens at the time their property was nationalized are still likely to be excluded based on the requirement of having current citizenship.In addition, only spouses and direct descendants can stake a claim to assets. Since many Jewish families were killed during the Holocaust, in various cases there are no living first-line heirs that could step forward and make a claim to properties, and siblings or nieces and nephews were often the only remaining heirs.Of the few who would be considered as eligible to claim properties, they still will not be given their properties back entirely. Instead, a successful claim would result in them receiving 20% of the value of the property in cash or 25% in government bonds. Claimants have a one-year deadline after which property would be transferred to the Polish Treasury.“The United States and Poland have a long and deep relationship stemming from the American Revolutionary War and continuing through our NATO partnership today,” wrote the senators in their letter. “It is in this spirit—coupled with the recognition of the tremendous contributions made by Polish-Americans—that we are writing to express concern about legislation regarding Holocaust Era property restitution that has been proposed by the Polish Ministry of Justice.”They objected to the legislation on the grounds that it would “eliminate the possibility of the return of actual property, provide only limited compensation, prevent compensation for ownership of companies that were destroyed, and bar claims by foreign citizens who did not benefit from eligible post-war treaties, including the one between Poland and the United States.”Gideon Taylor, WJRO Chair of Operations welcomes the letter, saying that “with fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors alive today, we call on Poland urgently to address this historic wrong. We are grateful to Senators Baldwin and Rubio and all of the 59 Senators who are raising their collective voice on behalf of Holocaust survivors and their families.”Poland is the only major country in Europe that has not passed national legislation for the restitution of property seized by the Nazis nor for property nationalized by a Communist regime, the letter notes. </s> Response to the letter of 59 U.S. Senators to Mateusz Morawiecki, The Prime Minister of Poland

To: T he Honorable Members of the U.S. Senate

The Honorable Members of the U.S. Senate,

As Polish American voters we write to you to express our concern over your open letter to the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki dated March 26, 2018.

First, we would like to thank you for your congratulations to the Polish people on the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining its independence. In 1918, following World War I, with the support of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Poland was restored to the map of Europe. We are grateful for the expression of your continued commitment to the development of mutually beneficial Polish-American relationships.

As your constituents, we are, however, saddened and alarmed by the fact that your letter to the Polish Prime Minister advocates only on behalf of the Jewish Holocaust victims but ignores the millions of Polish victims of World War II. Let us remind you, that millions of properties in partitioned, German and Soviet occupied Poland were first expropriated, then despoiled, dismantled or destroyed by Germany and the Soviet Union, and then finally nationalized by the postwar Communist government of Poland. We feel that your letter not only oversimplifies a very complex issue of the so-called property restitution, but it also surprisingly and unknowingly seems to blend nationalized properties with an extralegal issue of the so-called “restitution of heirless property”, a concept which carries a clear contradiction in terms, as heirless property refers to properties of the Polish citizens that legally and orderly escheated to the Polish state. The organizations making such extralegal claims on heirless property have absolutely no legal standing.

While nationalized properties claims are a subject of a big restitution bill proposed by the Polish Ministry of Justice, the “restitution of heirless properties” should not be a subject of your concern at all, as there is no legal or moral basis for that concept. It would be unconscionable to claim expropriation from the rightful present owners of their property, which they legally and properly acquired after the war. We would like to emphasize that Jewish property claims have been handled and settled by numerous post-war compensation schemes, most notably by the Luxemburg Agreement between Israel and Germany. On the basis of this Agreement the State of Israel, Jewish claims organizations and individuals obtained a compensation from Germany amounting to100 billion 2018 US dollars. The compensation served as settlement for all the human and material losses suffered by European Jews as the result of genocidal German policies and destruction of Jewish property. We must underline that based on the international law; the Republic of Poland is not a party to any agreements or treaties that would require Poland to make changes to its inheritance law which would mandate Poland to favor any special groups of people.

The American diplomat and lead negotiator at the Claims Conference Stuart E. Eizenstat once stated regarding post-Communist Eastern Europeans: “I found a seething bitterness that their citizens, also Hitler’s victims, had never received compensation from the Germans comparable to the billions paid to Jewish Holocaust victims.”[1]We feel the same bitterness while reading your letter.

As Polish Americans, we strongly object to your letter for the following additional reasons:
• INEQUITABLE TREATMENT. The letter of 59 Senators to Polish Prime Minister (“Letter”) states that “members of the U.S. Senate on both sides of the aisle stand united in seeking justice for victims of the Holocaust and their descendants,” while in fact the Letter is concerned only with justice for Jewish victims of the Holocaust and their descendants at the expense of Polish (and numerous other) victims of the Holocaust and their descendants. By doing so, the Letter confirms and supports the recent attempts to limit the definition of the Holocaust only to Jewish victims; hence it disregards millions of Polish victims of German genocide and disrespects millions of Americans of Polish descent. Millions of Polish WWII victims and Polish Holocaust survivors and their descendants never received any compensation from the occupiers for or the return of their properties, in particular those located in the Eastern part of Poland, which was annexed by the Soviet Union.
• INACURACY. The Letter grossly underestimates the number of victims of Polish ethnicity during the Holocaust by stating: “murder of almost 2 million non-Jews and 3 million of Jewish Poles.” Such a statement contradicts the data presented by the California Model Curriculum for Human Rights and Genocide that provides the losses of ethnic Poles in WWII at 3 million people.[2] It also ignores the findings of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) that estimates the losses for ethnic Poles at a minimum of 2.7 million people without counting the millions of Polish victims of the genocide conducted by the Soviet Union.[3]Therefore; the Letter uses inaccurate data and mimics a widespread anti-Polish bias in Holocaust scholarship and education.
• INJUSTICE. Although the Letter calls on the Polish government to pass national legislation that facilitates restitution in “a fair, comprehensive and nondiscriminatory manner,” it instead results in advocating for a privileged treatment of the Jewish victims over the Polish victims of German persecution.The Letter supports full-value property compensation against all prevailing practices. For instance, according to State Department records, the 1960 compensation agreement between the United States and Poland, administration of which was handled by the United States, resulted according to the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues in payments equal to 30 percent of actual value of the property. The above agreement compensated the U.S. citizens who had been legal owners of properties located in Poland at the time of nationalization.[4]
• The Letter calls on Poland to compensate Jewish victims for industrial assets destroyed by Germany. It would be a gross travesty of justice and falsification of history if the US Senate attempted to oblige and coerce Poland to provide restitution for property that was taken and destroyed by the willful and criminal actions of German and Soviet occupiers of Poland.
• The Letter calls for another round of payments on American citizens’ claims in direct violation of the Indemnification Clause of the 1960 Bilateral Agreement between Poland and the USA.[5]
• DISCRIMINATION UNDER TEREZIN DECLARATION.[6]The Letter bases its demands on the text of the Terezin Declaration, a legally non-binding document that openly discriminates against non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, in particular it discriminates against the ethnic Polish Holocaust Survivors.
• EXCLUSION. The Terezin Declaration deals with the wellbeing of Jewish victims defined as “Holocaust (Shoah)” and non-Jewish victims defined as “other victims of Nazi persecution.” However, when it comes to the most important compensation claims to immovable (real) property,it limits such claims to Jewish victims only. The section entitled “Immovable (Real) Property “excludes “non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution.” This key section of the entire declaration refers only to the Jewish victims defined as “Holocaust (Shoah)” victims, and unreasonably and in a biased way excludes millions of Polish victims defined as “other victims of Nazi persecution.” Polish victims’ rights to property compensation are disregarded. As evidenced, the Terezin Declaration visibly sanctions the unwarranted and biased discrimination against the Polish Holocaust Survivors as well as other victims of Nazi persecution, and their heirs, with respect to real property compensation claims.
• “OTHER”. The Terezin Declaration diminishes the Polish suffering and discriminates against the Polish victims of the Holocaust by treating millions of Poles murdered by Germans merely as “other victims.” A US citizen Bozenna Urbanowicz-Gilbride addresses this insult as follows: “Today we are merely the ‘other victims.’ We have no face, no name, we are nobody. That is how the Polish Catholic Holocaust Survivors are treated. Is that the way we, human beings, should treat each other?”[7]
• NAZIS. The Terezin Declaration diminishes and attempts to eliminate the guilt of Germany for the crimes committed in Poland by, inter alia, replacing the word “Germany” with “Nazi perpetrators.” Your Letter includes the historically and linguistically incorrect term “Nazi”. “Nazi” is a stateless concept. By using such terminology, it shifts the blame for the Holocaust from Germany to some undefined “Nazi perpetrators.” Polish Americans consider such manipulation of language as a willful and immoral attempt to hide the exclusive responsibility of Germany for its genocidal policies conducted on the territory of occupied Poland. Use of the term “Nazi perpetrators” is a clear attempt to shift the blame for the German genocidal policies to the victims, the Polish Holocaust Survivors, who are arbitrarily excluded in your Letter from the proposed immovable property compensation scheme. We believe that such manipulations of language constitute a clear form of Holocaust Denial (see Article 5 of the definition of Holocaust Denial adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance[8]in that the language used does not uphold historical justice. The nationality of the real perpetrators of the Holocaust, Germans, should not be hidden behind the curtain of twisted, politically motivated revisions to language. It is exactly this flawed language that leads to the use of historically false and offensive terms like “Polish death camps” by the global media. It is this linguistic relativity and the demands of historic justice which led the Polish parliament to pass the so-called “Holocaust bill” in January 2018, which met with so many unjustified reactions among the American politicians, including the U.S. Congress and the media.
• POLISH SUFFERING. An example of the widespread and long-lasting suppression of the reporting of the suffering of ethnic Poles in World War II in the United States has been documented in the letter to the U.S. Congress by the Polish Catholic Holocaust Survivor Bozenna Urbanowicz-Gilbride dated March12, 20187. For speaking up about the Polish suffering under German occupation, she has been systematically attacked as anti-Semite, bullied, abused and even physically confronted.
• BIAS IN HOLOCAUST EDUCATION. We call on the U.S. Congress to stop supporting and condoning the anti-Polish bias in Holocaust scholarship and education, and we call on the U.S. Congress to mandate the establishment of the Polish Department of the Holocaust Memorial Museum that shall be managed and operated by Polish Americans capable of telling the story of the Holocaust from the perspective of the millions of Polish victims. The current suppression of the voice of Polish victims and the near-monopoly of the Jewish perspective in the Holocaust study curriculum has had the harmful effect of distorting the history of the World War II and of the Holocaust, and results in anti-Polonism.
• VIOLATION OF THE CONTINOUS NATIONALITY RULE. The statement in your Letter: “We are deeply concerned that the bill, in its current form, would discriminate against virtually all American survivors and heirs on the basis that they are not currently citizens of Poland and that they were not residents of Poland when their property was nationalized.” collides with and contradicts the legal continuous nationality principle. This principle implies that a State may only exercise protection on behalf of a person, natural or legal, who was a national at both the time of the injury in respect of which the claim is brought and at the time of the presentation of the claim.[9] The Terezin Declaration, a legally non-binding document characterized by a very high level of abstraction and generality, should not repress the public international law.
• VIOLATION OF THE POLISH CIVIL CODE. Your Letter states: “As a result of the Nazi attempt to exterminate world Jewry, most European Jewish families were completely destroyed, including 90% of Poland’s Jewish community. Therefore, the remaining Jewish heirs are often non-linear — such as nieces, nephews, and cousins.” This statement contradicts the Polish Civil Code, especially Articles 932 – 936, which disallows a non-linear inheritance.[10] In addition, Poland should not be held responsible for the genocidal policies of the German Third Reich, which resulted in extermination of the majority of European Jews. The proper address for such claims continues to be Berlin.We cannot repeat it enough: It was Poland and only Poland, which asked Allies in 1942 to stop the extermination of Jews by Germany. To no avail, the Allies DID NOTHING to halt the German slaughter![11]
• APPLICATION PROCESS. The Letter criticizes “the one-year window for filing claims” as too short. It must be stressed that legal and administrative venues presently exist in Poland and other European Union countries to adjudicate claims in a court of law by those individuals and organizations that have legal standing for each particular claim. The potential foreign claimants will have enough time to prepare all the documents and to submit them to the Polish courts. Your criticism is unjustified. The proposed restitution bill will not impede but will facilitate the claims handling process.

Last, but not least, we must stress that Act S. 447 (Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act of 2017) was passed by the Senate on December 12, 2017 by acclamation. The Senate proceeded with the Bill without affording their Polish American constituents to be heard on the issue. Act S. 447 includes fundamentally anti-Polish extralegal elements, lacking any real legal and moral basis. If enacted and implemented, the Act would threaten Poland’s economic and political viability, if not its very ability to exist. We are deeply concerned about the possible impact and long term ramifications, which the Act S. 447 would have on Poland, and that the Polish-American voice in the process was strangely and in an unacceptable way excluded.

Let us conclude with a fragment from the speech of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in history of the House of Representatives, dated March 6, 2018:

Now is a time for unity, not division. Now is a time for restraint, not antagonism. Now is the time for reasoned dialogue, not media taunts. And let me commend the Polish-Israeli Reconciliation Commission for its reasoned progress and recent statement. Now is the time for diplomatic excellence and military readiness, not provocative gestures, legislative or otherwise. Now is the time for robust archival restoration so the full truth of millions who perished can be known and recorded forever. Now is the time to strengthen freedom’s umbrella, not weaken it. May I extend all congratulations and blessings to Poland on its 100th anniversary of reborn nationhood.[12] </s> WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's president said Tuesday he will sign into law a controversial proposal to outlaw blaming Poland as a nation for crimes committed by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, despite strong criticism from Israel and the United States.

But in an unusual move, President Andrzej Duda also said he will ask the country's constitutional court to evaluate the bill — theoretically opening the way for parliament to amend it.

The law will impose prison terms of up to three years for falsely attributing the crimes of Nazi Germany to Poland. It has fueled a diplomatic crisis with Israel, which fears it will stifle discussion about the Holocaust and enable Poland to whitewash the role of Poles who killed or denounced Jews during the German occupation of Poland during World War II.

The United States also strongly opposes the legislation, saying it could hurt Poland's strategic relations with Israel and the U.S. The U.S. has also expressed concerns that the law could hurt freedom of expression and academic research.

Defending the law, Duda said the law will not block Holocaust survivors and witnesses from talking about crimes committed by individual Poles.

"We do not deny that there were cases of huge wickedness," he said in a speech.

But he said the point of the law is to prevent Poles and Poland from being wrongly accused of institutionalized participation in the Holocaust.

"No, there was no systemic way in which Poles took part in it," he said.

The legislation was earlier approved by parliament. It is not clear whether the Constitutional Tribunal will ask for any changes, as it is controlled by Poland's conservative ruling Law and Justice party.

Polish officials have long argued the law is needed to fight expressions like "Polish death camps" for the camps Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland.

The legislation has not only sparked a bitter dispute with Israel — it has also caused division within Poland, which has seen a marked increase of anti-Semitic rhetoric in public debate in recent weeks.

On the weekend Beata Mazurek, the spokeswoman for Law and Justice and a deputy speaker of parliament, quoted a Catholic priest on Twitter who had said that the Israeli ambassador's criticism of the law has "make it hard for me to look at Jews with sympathy and kindness."

Ryszard Czarnecki, Vice President of the European Parliament, weighed in by saying on state TV that "the circles of American Jews have often been even more aggressive than the Jewish circles in Israel."

On Monday evening a small group of far-right advocates demonstrated in front of the presidential palace demanding that Duda sign the law. They carried a banner that said, "Take off your yarmulke. Sign the bill."

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has cancelled a trip to Israel in the wake of reported remarks made by his Israeli counterpart suggesting Polish complicity during the Holocaust, an aide in his office told Polish media on Sunday.

A government spokeswoman confirmed to the Reuters news agency that Prime Minister Morawiecki will not attend the summit and that Poland will send Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz instead.

Morawiecki informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of his decision to cancel his visit in a telephone call on Sunday afternoon, spokeswoman Joanna Kopcinska said.

The summit of four Central and Eastern European countries is set to be held in Jerusalem this week.

The decision comes after Netanyahu was quoted as saying that "Poles cooperated with the Germans" in the Holocaust.

Netanyahu's office has insisted that the Israeli leader was "misquoted" and had not implicated all Poles in the Holocaust.

In a statement, the Israeli prime minister's office said he had not cast any blanket blame, regarding Netanyahu's previous remarks on the question of Polish collaboration with Nazi occupiers.

Israel's Ambassador to Poland Anna Azari was summoned by the Polish government on Friday and was asked to clarify Netanyahu's comments.

Morawiecki said in an interview published by Polish news agency PAP on Sunday that Azari explained that Netanyahu was referring to individual cases of Poles collaborating with Nazis.

Tensions between Israel and Poland ran high last year after the European nation introduced new legislation that would make the use of phrases such as "Polish death camps" punishable by up to three years in prison.

After pressure from the US government and an outcry in Israel, Poland watered down the legislation, removing the prison sentences.

Many Poles still refuse to accept research showing thousands participated in the Holocaust in addition to the thousands who risked their lives to help the Jews. </s> WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's president said Tuesday he will sign into law a controversial proposal to outlaw blaming Poland as a nation for crimes committed by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, despite strong criticism from Israel and the United States.

But in an unusual move, President Andrzej Duda also said he will ask the country's constitutional court to evaluate the bill - theoretically opening the way for parliament to amend it.

The law will impose prison terms of up to three years for falsely attributing the crimes of Nazi Germany to Poland. It has fueled a diplomatic crisis with Israel, which fears it will stifle discussion about the Holocaust and enable Poland to whitewash the role of Poles who killed or denounced Jews during the German occupation of Poland during World War II.

The United States also strongly opposes the legislation, saying it could hurt Poland's strategic relations with Israel and the U.S. The U.S. has also expressed concerns that the law could hurt freedom of expression and academic research.

Defending the law, Duda said the law will not block Holocaust survivors and witnesses from talking about crimes committed by individual Poles.

"We do not deny that there were cases of huge wickedness," he said in a speech.

But he said the point of the law is to prevent Poles and Poland from being wrongly accused of institutionalized participation in the Holocaust.

"No, there was no systemic way in which Poles took part in it," he said.

The legislation was earlier approved by parliament. It is not clear whether the Constitutional Tribunal will ask for any changes, as it is controlled by Poland's conservative ruling Law and Justice party.

Polish officials have long argued the law is needed to fight expressions like "Polish death camps" for the camps Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland.

The legislation has not only sparked a bitter dispute with Israel - it has also caused division within Poland, which has seen a marked increase of anti-Semitic rhetoric in public debate in recent weeks.

On the weekend Beata Mazurek, the spokeswoman for Law and Justice and a deputy speaker of parliament, quoted a Catholic priest on Twitter who had said that the Israeli ambassador's criticism of the law has "make it hard for me to look at Jews with sympathy and kindness."

Ryszard Czarnecki, Vice President of the European Parliament, weighed in by saying on state TV that "the circles of American Jews have often been even more aggressive than the Jewish circles in Israel."

On Monday evening a small group of far-right advocates demonstrated in front of the presidential palace demanding that Duda sign the law. They carried a banner that said, "Take off your yarmulke. Sign the bill."
A letter from 59 US Senators is sent to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki criticising proposed legislation on reparations to Holocaust victims. The Senators say the bill will discriminate against victims and descendants who had emigrated.