Israel summoned Poland's top diplomat on Sunday to express their opposition to legislation advancing through the Polish parliament regarding the Holocaust and the definition of Nazi death camps.

The charge d'affaires for Poland's embassy in Israel, Piotr Kozlowski, was summoned to the Israeli foreign ministry where he was asked for a "clarification" on the pending legislation, according to a statement from the ministry.

"Israel's opposition to the wording of the bill was expressed to him," the ministry said. "The timing of the bill — the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day — was particularly surprising and unfortunate."

The meeting comes a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he strongly opposed the Polish draft law that stipulates fines and even three years in jail for anyone who refers to Nazi German death camps as being Polish.

"The law is baseless," said Netanyahu, adding that he had told his ambassador to convey Israel's objection to Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister of Poland's right-wing government.

Israel's education and diaspora minister, Naftali Bennett, accused Poland's right-wing-dominated parliament of a "shameful disregard of the truth" that went beyond the "historic fact that Germans initiated, planned and built the work and death camps in Poland."

Israel coalition leaders: Netanyahu and Bennett (R)

"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," Bennett said, adding that what happened "must be taught to the next generation."

Read more: Educating against anti-Semitism: German students visit concentration camp

Bill 'necessary'

Polish Deputy Justice Minister Patryk Jaki, who authored the legislation, said claims that Poles were "co-responsible" for the Holocaust was "proof of how necessary this bill is."

Polish government spokeswoman Joanna Kopcinska tweeted that the bill sought "to show the truth about the terrible crimes committed on Poles, Jews, and other nations that in the 20th century were victims of brutal totalitarian regimes – German Nazi regime and Soviet communism."

Poland has often pressed global media and foreign politicians for corrections when they use the term "Polish death camps" to refer to sites such as Auschwitz, where 3 million people, mostly Jews from across Europe and also Poles, were killed in Nazi-run camps in what is today Poland.

The phrase was used by former US President Barack Obama in 2012, prompting outrage in Poland.

Read more: Germany's Merkel warns of increased anti-Semitism on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Bill could 'blur' truths

Listen to audio 03:42 Share Inside Europe: Defaming history Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/1Jkw5 Inside Europe: Defaming history

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Tel Aviv, said the phrase was a "historical misrepresentation," warning, however, that the bill would "blur the historical truths regarding assistance the Germans received from the Polish population during the Holocaust."

The bill, adopted Friday by the lower house of the Polish parliament, is expected to easily pass in Poland's Senate before being forwarded to President Andrzej Duda for signing.

Critics say that enforcing such a law would be impossible outside Poland and that within the country, it would have a chilling effect on debating history.

Although scholarly or academic works would be excluded from criminalization, critics such as the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights say Poland's nationalistic authorities could still stifle research, particularly into the role of individual Poles during the Nazi era.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, through his spokesman, said: "Every crime, every offense must be condemned, denounced, must be examined and exposed."

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Dachau The Nazi regime opened the first concentration camp in Dauchau, not far from Munich. Just a few weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power it was used by the paramilitary SS "Schutzstaffel" to imprison, torture and kill political opponents to the regime. Dachau also served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi camps that followed.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Wannsee House The villa on Berlin's Wannsee lake was pivotal in planning the Holocaust. Fifteen members of the Nazi government and the SS Schutzstaffel met here on January 20, 1942 to plan what became known as the "Final Solution," the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory. In 1992, the villa where the Wannsee Conference was held was turned into a memorial and museum.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Bergen-Belsen The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony was initially established as a prisoner of war camp before becoming a concentration camp. Prisoners too sick to work were brought here from other concentration camps, so many also died of disease. One of the 50,000 killed here was Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who gained international fame posthumously after her diary was published.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Buchenwald Memorial Buchenwald near the Thuringian town of Weimar was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. From 1937 to April 1945, the National Socialists deported about 270,000 people from all over Europe here and murdered 64,000 of them.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Nazi party rally grounds Nuremberg hosted the biggest Nazi party propaganda rallies from 1933 until the start of the Second World War. The annual Nazi party congress as well as rallies with as many as 200,000 participants took place on the 11-km² (4.25 square miles) area. Today, the unfinished Congress Hall building serves as a documentation center and a museum.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Memorial to the German Resistance The Bendlerblock building in Berlin was the headquarters of a military resistance group. On July 20, 1944, a group of Wehrmacht officers around Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg carried out an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler that failed. The leaders of the conspiracy were summarily shot the same night in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, which is today the German Resistance Memorial Center.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Hadamar Euthanasia Center From 1941 people with physical and mental disabilities were killed at a psychiatric hospital in Hadamar in Hesse. Declared "undesirables" by the Nazis, some 15,000 people were murdered here by asphyxiation with carbon monoxide or by being injected with lethal drug overdoses. Across Germany some 70,000 were killed as part of the Nazi euthanasia program. Today Hadamar is a memorial to those victims.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Holocaust Memorial Located next to the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin's Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was inaugurated sixty years after the end of World War II on May 10, 2005, and opened to the public two days later. Architect Peter Eisenman created a field with 2,711 concrete slabs. An attached underground "Place of Information" holds the names of all known Jewish Holocaust victims.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Memorial to persecuted homosexuals Not too far from the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, another concrete memorial honors the thousands of homosexuals persecuted by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The four-meter high monument, which has a window showing alternately a film of two men or two women kissing, was inaugurated in Berlin's Tiergarten on May 27, 2008.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Sinti and Roma Memorial Opposite the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, a park inaugurated in 2012 serves as a memorial to the 500,000 Sinti and Roma people killed by the Nazi regime. Around a memorial pool the poem "Auschwitz" by Roma poet Santino Spinelli is written in English, Germany and Romani: "gaunt face, dead eyes, cold lips, quiet, a broken heart, out of breath, without words, no tears."

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust 'Stolpersteine' - stumbling blocks as memorials In the 1990s, the artist Gunther Demnig began a project to confront Germany's Nazi past. Brass-covered concrete cubes placed in front of the former houses of Nazi victims, provide details about the people and their date of deportation and death, if known. More than 45,000 "Stolpersteine" have been laid in 18 countries in Europe - it's the world's largest decentralized Holocaust memorial.

'Never Again': Memorials of the Holocaust Brown House in Munich Right next to the "Führerbau" where Adolf Hitler had his office, was the headquarters of the Nazi Party in Germany, in the "Brown House" in Munich. A white cube now occupies its former location. A new "Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism" opened on April 30, 2015, 70 years after the liberation from the Nazi regime, uncovering further dark chapters of history. Author: Max Zander, Ille Simon



bik,ipj/sms (dpa, AFP, Reuters)