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officially called the **Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance** of 2018 in Poland, is a partly repealed law that would have made it criminal to claim that Poland was responsible for the Holocaust.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. Articles added in February 2018 included:

* Article 53o:

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.

* Article 55a:

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.' 

* Article 2a:

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. 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:

Legal scholar Uladzislau Belavusau said:

Legal scholar Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz also said:

Furthermore, constitutional law scholar Wojciech Sadurski said:

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

#### 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." 

#### 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:

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

#### Advocacy groups
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) said:

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

 

### 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: 

 

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

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.

### 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.

Some misconceptions about the Holocaust in Poland are summarized as follows: strongly opposed to the Law, which has made him a target of threats. In February 2021, Profs. Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking were sued in a Polish court over a book in which they discussed the role of Catholic Poles in the Holocaust. In August 2021, the Warsaw Court of Appeal dismissed the lawsuit against them.

#### 2023
In June 2023, Grabowski held a seminar on Poland's history of antisemitism in Warsaw. Grzegorz Braun, a far-right MP, smashed Grabowski's microphone and forced the seminar to be cancelled. During the 2023 Hanukkah, the same MP put out a menorah with a fire extinguisher in the Polish parliament, who was expelled by the parliament and charged with hate crimes. while being praised by pro-Palestinian users in Reddit's subreddit r/Poland (1.1M subscribers) who claimed to be "only anti-Israel". Despite Braun's actions, he was elected to the European Parliament in June 2024.

## Related pages
* Kraków pogrom
* Jedwabne pogrom
* Szczuczyn pogrom
* Holocaust uniqueness debate

## Footnotes
## References