BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — A right-wing Polish group sued a newspaper in Argentina under the country’s new Holocaust law for using a photo of Polish partisans to illustrate an article about the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941.

The lawsuit was filed on Friday by the Polish League Against Defamation, or the Reduta Dobrego Imienia, hours after the controversial new law took effect. It is the first lawsuit filed that invokes the new law.

The League, or RDI, filed the lawsuit in a Warsaw court about a story published in the Argentinean newspaper Pagina/12 in December 2017, about the Jedwabne pogrom, a 1941 massacre of more than 300 Jews by their Polish neighbors during the Nazi occupation. The article was written by psychologist Federico Pavlovsky.

According to RDI, the Argentinean news outlet accompanied the story with an image of Polish resistance fighters who had nothing to do with the massacre. The article was trying to “confirm Polish anti-Semitism to its readers,” showing a “huge ignorance about history, for which it should officially apologize to all Poles,” Radio Poland reported.

“If successful, this attempt at international censorship could threaten freedom of expression worldwide,” the newspaper said in a statement.

Sunday’s edition of Pagina/12, which is published in Buenos Aires, is mostly dedicated to the issue of Poland’s new law, an amendment to the National Institute of Remembrance which criminalizes claims that the Polish nation or state was responsible for Nazi crimes.

The article referenced in the lawsuit, “Familiar faces,” was republished again on Sunday, with an editor’s note indicating that it was this article originally published on Dec. 18 that sparked the complaint.

“The organization has a right to submit such a lawsuit. If the court decides the complaint is admissible – and it should do so — then there will be a court case,” Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik told private radio station Zet.

The Argentine newspaper published letters expressing solidarity with the newspaper and letters from critics of the new controversial law, including experts on law, human rights and freedom of expression. The president of the Argentinean Jewish political umbrella DAIA, Ariel Cohen Sabban, wrote: “About the complaint received by Pagina/12 we are very concerned about the position that is being taken by the Polish state.”

According to its website, RDI was established in 2012 to initiate and support actions aimed at correcting false information on Poland’s history, in particular World War II, such as the role of Poles in the war, Polish people’s attitude to Jews, and German concentration camps.

Under the controversial new Polish law, violators could face up to three years in prison, though government officials have said that prosecution under the law is unlikely. Critics of the law include Israeli leaders, Yad Vashem, the U.S. State Department and Jewish groups. </s> An Argentinian newspaper has become the first outlet to be targeted by Poland's controversial new Holocaust law, after a nationalist group filed a case on Friday hours after the legislation went live.

The law, which went into effect Thursday, sets fines or up to three years in jail for anyone ascribing "responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich".

The main aim is to prevent people from erroneously describing Nazi German death camps in Poland, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, as Polish.

The legislation has drawn widespread international criticism and ignited an unprecedented diplomatic row with Israel.

Critics, including Israel's government, have expressed concerns that the legislation could open the door to prosecuting Holocaust survivors for their testimony should it concern the involvement of individual Poles in killing or giving up Jews to the Germans.

On Friday the Polish League Against Defamation (RDI), a non-profit which is close to Poland's conservative government, lodged a case under the new law against the website of Pagina 12, a newspaper in Argentina.

The RDI said the paper had used a picture of anti-Communist Polish resistance fighters from after World War Two in an article about the Jedwabne pogrom, a 1941 massacre of more than 300 Jews by their Polish neighbours during the Nazi occupation.

RDI accused the newspaper and its journalist Federico Pavlovsky of "an action intended to harm the Polish nation and the good reputation of Polish soldiers".

Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II, losing six million of its citizens, including three million Jews. </s> A major Argentinian newspaper has become the first target of Poland's controversial new Holocaust legislation, which took effect Thursday despite Israeli diplomatic pressure. 



The nationalist Polish League Against Defamation (RDI) group filed a lawsuit on Friday against the daily Argentinian newspaper Pagina 12's website which it says used a photo of post-Second World War Polish resistance fighters in a December 2017 article about the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom.





The pogrom saw the massacre of at least 340 Jews from the small Polish town of Jedwabne and surrounding areas killed by their Polish neighbors on July 10, 1941.The RDI complaint stated that the Buenos Aires-based Pagina 12 newspaper and journalist Federico Pavlovsky's actions amounted to "manipulation in order to harm the Polish nation and the good reputation of Polish soldiers.""By issuing such a statement, the publisher showed great historical ignorance, for which he should officially apologize to all Poles," said the RDI. The group does not address whether the law can be applied retroactively to cover an article published prior to the legislation coming into force.The new legislation makes it a crime to say that the Polish nation was responsible or co-responsible for crimes committed during the Holocaust, an offense punishable by a fine and up to three years in prison.The law, which remains subject to review by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal should its public prosecutor's office attempt to press charges, has led to an unprecedented crisis in diplomatic relations between Israel and Poland.Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid responded to the lawsuit on Saturday, calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "to stop negotiating [with Poland] immediately and recall [Israel's] ambassador."Amid the diplomatic stand-off between Israel and Poland, Israeli Foreign Ministry director-general Yuval Rotem stated Thursday that preserving the memory of the Holocaust is of greater importance than maintaining good diplomatic ties with Warsaw.“Israel and Poland enjoy strong political bilateral ties, based on common values,” Rotem said during talks with a Polish delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Bartosz Cichocki in Jerusalem.“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,” he added.On Monday, Polish Ambassador to Israel Jacek Chodorowicz told a Knesset committee that the new law will not be enforced in the near future.“The Polish Justice Ministry committed to not enforcing the new law before there is an in-depth examination of all of its components, including a discussion with Israeli representatives,” said Chodorowicz, emphasizing that the two countries would continue to discuss the divisive legislation. </s> WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish campaign group is suing an Argentine newspaper it says breached a new law that makes it a criminal offence to suggest Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

In what appeared to be the first legal action under the so-called Holocaust law, just hours after it took effect, the Polish League Against Defamation said it filed a complaint against Argentina’s Pagina 12 daily. The paper said it had not received formal notice of the lawsuit.

A minister from Poland’s conservative government applauded the move to invoke the law which Warsaw says will protect it from slander, but which the United States and Israel said would suppress authentic historic research and free speech.

The League, a non-governmental group that campaigns to protect Poland’s historical reputation abroad, said that in December 2017 Pagina 12 used a photograph of Polish so-called ‘doomed soldiers’ who fought against communists after the war to illustrate an article on the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews.

“The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organization said in a statement.

The ruling Law and Justice party has praised the ‘doomed soldiers’. While many are seen as national heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination, some led killings of Jews, Belarusians and other minorities.

In an article posted on its website on Saturday evening, Pagina 12 said, “this newspaper did not receive any legal communication and only learned of the information through international news agency reports.”

“If successful, this attempt at international censorship could threaten freedom of expression worldwide,” the article read.

Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court.

“The organization has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible - and it should do so — then there will be a court case,” he told private radio station Zet.

Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupied Poland — home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community at the time — including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis, who invaded Poland in 1939, also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians. </s> A Polish campaign group is suing an Argentinian newspaper it says breached a new law that makes it a criminal offence to suggest Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

In what appeared to be the first legal action under the so-called Holocaust law, just hours after it took effect, the Polish League Against Defamation said it filed a complaint against Argentina’s Pagina 12 daily.

A minister from Poland’s conservative government applauded the move to invoke the law which Warsaw says will protect it from slander, but which the United States and Israel said would suppress authentic historic research and free speech.

The League, a non-governmental group that campaigns to protect Poland’s historical reputation abroad, said that in December 2017 Pagina 12 used a photograph of Polish so-called ‘doomed soldiers’ who fought against communists after the war to illustrate an article on the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews.

“The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organization said in a statement.

The ruling Law and Justice party has praised the ‘doomed soldiers.’ While many are seen as national heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination, some led killings of Jews, Belarussians and other minorities.

Pagina 12 was not immediately available to comment.

Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court.

“The organization has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible – and it should do so – then there will be a court case,” he told private radio station Zet.

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Although thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbors during the war, research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim. </s> BUENOS AIRES, Mar 27 2018 (IPS) - Can an official historical truth be universally imposed in defence of a nation’s reputation? Poland believes that it can, and launched a crusade against those who accuse the Polish State or citizens of complicity with the Holocaust. An Argentine newspaper was its first victim.

An article about a massacre of Jews perpetrated by their own neighbours in a Polish town during World War Two (1939-1945), which was not ordered by the Nazi occupiers, prompted a lawsuit in the Polish courts against the newspaper Página 12 in early March.

Just a few days earlier, an unusual law that caused an international controversy had entered into force in the eastern European country, creating penalties of up to three years in prison for those who claim, anywhere around the world, that Poland or the Poles were responsible for the crimes committed against the Jews in their territory during the Nazi occupation.

“The lawsuit was filed by a group linked to the Polish government. We are going to make an international case of this, not to make ourselves famous, but because they are trying to impose a kind of global censorship for which there are not many precedents around the world,” the chief editor of Página 12, Martín Granovsky, told IPS.

“The article published in Página 12 did not mean to say that all Poles were anti-Semitic or that there were no non-Jewish Poles killed under Nazism. We told about a case of neighbours who tortured and killed other neighbours,” he added.

Granovsky said the lawsuit – of which the newspaper has not yet been notified – will be fought in the courts as well as in the court of public opinion. To this end, Página 12 is contacting organisations that defend journalism and freedom of expression around the world.

The complaint against Página 12, a centre-left newspaper that was founded in the 1980s, after Argentina’s return to democracy following the 1976-1983 dictatorship, was filed by the Polish League Against Defamation, a non-governmental organisation created in 2012 with the aim of “initiating and supporting actions to correct false information about the history of Poland, in particular about the role of the Poles in the Second World War, their attitudes towards the Jews and the German concentration camps,” according to its website.

There is a patent similarity between the organisation’s aims and the philosophy that inspired the bill passed by the Polish parliament on Feb. 1 and signed into law by ultraconservative President Andrzej Duda five days later.

The law, according to a statement issued by Poland’s Foreign Ministry, seeks to “combat all forms of denial and distortion of the truth about the Holocaust, as well as attempts to underestimate (the responsibility) of the real perpetrators.”

“Accusing the Polish State and nation of complicity with the Third German Reich in Nazi crimes is wrong, deceptive and hurtful for the victims,” the text continues.

The U.S. State Department had released a statement, when the Polish parliament was about to sanction the law, saying that it “could undermine free speech and academic discourse.”

The questioning by the United States is of particular significance since it is the main ally of Poland, a country that has been accused of violations of the rule of law by the European Union, of which that country is a member.

In December, the EU began to take steps to sanction Warsaw for the enactment of laws that, it argued, sought to weaken judicial independence.

The U.S. State Department suggested that the attempt to restrict opinions about Poland’s role in the Holocaust will lead the country to greater international isolation, as it pointed out that the law could have repercussions “on Poland’s strategic interests and relations, including with the United States and Israel.”

For Damián Loreti, former director of Communication Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, the Polish law on the Holocaust “violates all international standards in the field of freedom of expression and scientific research.”

“This is because it tries to impose an official historical truth, against which there can be nothing said to the contrary,” Loreti told IPS.

The academic said that “a country’s honour is not a legitimate legal subject to be protected by imposing restrictions on free speech, according to the European Convention on Human Rights, and it also violates United Nations resolutions.”

The op-ed that triggered the lawsuit was published by Página 12 on Dec. 18, 2017, under the title “Familiar Faces”. It was written by Federico Pavlovsky, a psychoanalyst who told IPS that he preferred not to make public statements while the case was making its way through the courts.

In his column, Pavlovsky describes “one of the cruelest and most incredible events recorded in the Second World War,” which occurred on Jul. 10, 1941 in Jedwabne, 190 km from Warsaw.

“That day, 1500 people killed or watched another 1600 being killed, the latter of whom were of Jewish origin,” reads the article, adding: “One of the peculiarities of this massacre is that in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Germans did not order the killing or participate in it, they merely authorised the sequence of events and took photographs.”

The op-ed basically collects the information made public in 2001 by historian Jan Gross in his book “Neighbours: the destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland”, which had a strong impact both in that country and in the United States.

Gross is a Pole born in 1947, the son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, who in 1969, during the communist regime, went into exile in the United States.

The Polish law punishes in particular anyone who speaks of “Polish concentration camps”, instead of clarifying that they were in Polish territory but were the responsibility of the Nazi regime, which was occupying the country.

“It is true that the Polish state had ceased to exist and that there was only a Polish government in exile in London, which fought the Nazis,” psychotherapist and writer Diana Wang told IPS. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she was born in Poland in 1945 and has lived in Argentina since the age of two.

“However, Poland has a long tradition of anti-Semitism at a cultural level, and hundreds of thousands of Poles participated in the murder of Jews and appropriated their property,” added Wang, who heads Generations of the Shoah, an organisation dedicated to keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust in Argentina.

“It’s true that to talk about Polish concentration camps does not exactly represent the historical truth, because they were under the control of the Germans, but everyone has the right to say what they want,” said Wang, who after hearing about the lawsuit published an op-ed in Página 12 titled: “Poland can sue me too.”

Since the lawsuit was filed, the newspaper has published daily articles about the legal case and about the history of Jewish people in Jedwabne. </s> * Law suit appears to be first under new law

* Minister says he hopes case will go to court

WARSAW, March 3 (Reuters) - A Polish campaign group is suing an Argentinian newspaper it says breached a new law that makes it a criminal offence to suggest Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.

In what appeared to be the first legal action under the so-called Holocaust law, just hours after it took effect, the Polish League Against Defamation said it filed a complaint against Argentina’s Pagina 12 daily.

A minister from Poland’s conservative government applauded the move to invoke the law which Warsaw says will protect it from slander, but which the United States and Israel said would suppress authentic historic research and free speech.

The League, a non-governmental group that campaigns to protect Poland’s historical reputation abroad, said that in December 2017 Pagina 12 used a photograph of Polish so-called‘doomed soldiers’ who fought against communists after the war to illustrate an article on the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941 in which Nazi occupiers and local inhabitants colluded in the massacre of at least 340 Jews.

“The combination of these two threads: information about the crime on Jews in Jedwabne during the German occupation and the presentation of fallen soldiers of the independence underground is manipulation, an act to the detriment of the Polish nation,” the organisation said in a statement.

The ruling Law and Justice party has praised the‘doomed soldiers’. While many are seen as national heroes in the struggle against Soviet domination, some led killings of Jews, Belarussians and other minorities.

Pagina 12 was not immediately available to comment.

Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik said he hoped the case would go to court.

“The organisation has a right to submit such a notice. If the court decides the complaint is admissible - and it should do so — then there will be a court case,” he told private radio station Zet.

Jews from across Europe were sent to be killed at death camps built and operated by Germans in occupied Poland — home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community at the time — including Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

Some 3 million Jews who lived in pre-war Poland were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Thousands of Poles risked their lives to protect Jewish neighbours during the war. But research published since the fall of communism in 1989 showed that thousands also killed Jews or denounced those who hid them to the Nazi occupiers, challenging the national narrative that Poland was solely a victim.

According to figures from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis, who invaded Poland in 1939, also killed at least 1.9 million non-Jewish Polish civilians. (Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk Additional reporting by Luc Cohen in Buenos Aires Editing by Robin Pomeroy) </s> Flowers are placed at the memorial to Janusz Korczak who died in the gas chamber of the Treblinka Nazi German death camp in 1942 together with the children of the Jewish orphanage that he ran in the W

Just one day after Poland’s controversial new Holocaust law took effect, a Polish organization filed the first lawsuit invoking it.

The Polish League Against Defamation, an independent organization considered close to Poland’s right-wing, nationalist government, filed suit in Warsaw on Friday against the Argentine paper Pagina 12, accusing it of damaging Poland’s reputation.

The paper had published an article about the 1941 pogrom committed by Poles against their Jewish neighbors in the town of Jedwabne, an incident that has become a symbol of Polish collaboration with Nazi crimes. The lawsuit focused specifically on the photo accompanying the article, which doesn’t illustrate the pogrom itself but shows a group of Polish partisans who fought the country’s communist regime in the 1950s.

The suit argues that by linking the pogrom, which took place when Poland was under Nazi occupation, with Polish “freedom fighters” who fought the communist occupation that began once World War II ended, the paper was being “manipulative” and “harming the Polish nation and the reputation of Polish soldiers.” Moreover, it charged, the paper was seeking persuade its readers that Poland is anti-Semitic.

The paper’s choice of photograph demonstrated “great historical ignorance, for which it ought to apologize to all Poles,” the suit adds.

However, since the article was published in December, before the law took effect, it’s not clear whether the suit will be admissible.

The new law makes it a crime to claim the Polish nation was involved in the crimes of the Nazis, war crimes or crimes against humanity, “in defiance of the truth.” The sentence for violators ranges from a fine to three years in jail. Poland deems the law applicable to everyone, even people who aren’t Polish citizens.

The law, which officially took effect on March 1, was approved by the Polish parliament last month and then signed by President Andrzej Duda. But the Polish Justice Ministry said it wouldn’t enforce the legislation until it has been reviewed by Poland’s constitutional court. No date for the court hearing has been set yet.

Israel has been harshly critical of the law, and Polish and Israeli representatives met at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on Thursday in an effort to find a solution that would satisfy both countries. Israel argues that the law distorts history and will undermine academic research and freedom of expression. But Thursday’s three-hour meeting did not produce an agreement, and the parties plan to meet again.

Meanwhile, a Polish parliamentary committee which is examining the possibility of demanding reparations from Germany announced this weekend that Berlin owes it $850 billion for damages incurred during World War II.

“We are talking about very large but justified sums for war crimes, for the destroyed cities, the lost demographic potential of our country,” said Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a member of parliament from the ruling Law and Justice party, on Friday. He chairs the parliamentary committee established in September to estimate the amount of reparations Poland should seek if it chooses to do so.

Germany flatly refuses to pay reparations, saying this issue was settled back in the 1950s with Poland’s communist government of the time. But Poland rejects this argument, saying the communist regime’s decisions don’t bind the governments that came after it, because they were not made freely, but under pressure from the Soviet Union. </s> Vanessa Gera and Monika Scislowska, The Associated Press 

 



WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's president on Tuesday signed legislation that outlaws blaming Poland as a nation for Holocaust crimes committed by Nazi Germany, defying both criticism from Israel and a warning from the U.S.

But in a move that appeared designed to soften the impact of his decision, President Andrzej Duda said he would also ask Poland's constitutional court to evaluate the bill -- leaving open the possibility it would be amended.

As currently written, the legislation calls for prison terms of up to three years for falsely attributing the crimes of Nazi Germany to Poland. The law takes effect 14 days after it's officially published, but it wasn't immediately clear when that will be.

Poland's authorities have described it as an attempt to protect the country's reputation from what it believes is confusion about who bears responsibility for Auschwitz and other death camps Nazi Germany set up in occupied Poland. They say it was modeled on anti-defamation laws in many other countries, including laws criminalizing Holocaust denial.

The proposed law has fueled a diplomatic crisis with Israel, which fears it would stifle discussion about the Holocaust and enable Poland to whitewash the role of the Poles who killed or denounced Jews during the German occupation of Poland during World War II.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that it would continue to communicate with Poland despite its reservations about the law. It said it hopes Duda's decision to ask the constitutional court to evaluate the bill will allow both sides to "agree on changes and corrections."

That language seemed more conciliatory than earlier statements, suggesting the sides are seeking compromise.

Duda acknowledged there were doubts about the legislation's intent, leading some observers to interpret his request for a constitutional review as a way to save face while calming the storm.

But critics say it was a diversionary tactic.

Slawomir Neumann of the centrist Civic Platform party accused Duda of giving in to the pressure of nationalists and anti-Semites and said his signing "deepens the diplomatic crisis."

Neumann, head of the party's parliamentary caucus, also described the constitutional court as a body without independence that will rule as the governing party wants.

The United States also strongly opposed the legislation, warning that it could hurt Poland's strategic relations with both Israel and the U.S.

After Duda signed it, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the new law "adversely affects freedom of speech and academic inquiry."

Holocaust scholars and institutions strongly denounced the law as well, arguing that its unclear wording created the potential for abuse. Polish officials note that a provision in the law exempts historic research and works of art.

Polish officials have long argued a Holocaust speech law is needed to fight the use of expressions like "Polish death camps" as shorthand for the German camps in Nazi-occupied Poland where Jews and others were exterminated.

Secretary of State Tillerson said that while "terms like 'Polish death camps' are painful and misleading," they are best countered through "open debate, scholarship, and education."

Defending the law, Duda said it would not prohibit 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 the Polish nation as a whole from being wrongly accused of institutionalized participation in the Holocaust. He recalled that the Polish government at the time had to go into exile and Polish officials were those who struggled to inform the world that the Germans were putting Jews to death on Polish soil.

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

The legislation hasn't only sparked a bitter dispute with Israel. It also has caused division within Poland, where anti-Semitic rhetoric moved quickly from the political fringes into the mainstream over just a few days.

Beata Mazurek, the spokeswoman for the conservative Law and Justice and a deputy parliament speaker, tweeted a quote by a Catholic priest who had said that the Israeli ambassador's criticism of the bill "made it hard for me to look at Jews with sympathy and kindness."

Many conservative lawmakers and commentators are now accusing Israelis and American Jews of using the issue as a pretext for getting money from Poland for prewar Jewish property seized in the communist era.

Jerzy Czerwinski, a senator with the ruling party, said on state radio Monday that he saw a "hidden agenda" in the opposition.

"After all, we know that Jewish circles, including American, but mostly the state of Israel, are trying to get restitution of property or at least compensation," he said.

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."

The bill first was proposed about two years ago, soon after Law and Justice took power in 2015, but hadn't been an issue of public debate recently. Many people were surprised when lawmakers suddenly approved it on Jan. 26, the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Jan Grabowski, a historian at the University of Ottawa in Canada who studies Polish violence against Jews during the war, called Duda's signing of the law "further proof that the nationalists now in power in Poland will do anything to cater to the hard, right-wing core of their electorate."

"Unfortunately, it is not only the nationalists but also the whole Polish society which will have to pay the price," said Grabowski, who is also a member of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw.

Aron Heller and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Hours after the Polish so-called Holocaust Law about discussing of historical facts takes effect, the Polish League Against Defamation sues Argentinian newspaper Página/12, which it accuses of suggesting Poland was complicit in the Holocaust.