JERUSALEM: Israel’s prime minister and Holocaust survivors on Sunday bridled at a draft Polish law that would make it illegal to suggest Poland bore any responsibility for Nazi atrocities committed on its soil.

The Israeli foreign ministry summoned Poland’s charge d’affaires — the ambassador was abroad to object to the bill, which is still going through parliament.

“We will under no circumstances accept any attempt to rewrite history,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in lengthy public remarks to his cabinet.

Before World War Two, Poland was home to Europe’s largest Jewish community of some 3.2 million. Nazi Germany attacked and occupied Poland in 1939 and later built death camps including Auschwitz and Treblinka on Polish soil. Most of the Jews that lived in Poland were killed by the Nazi occupiers.

The Polish government said in a statement the law aimed to stop the Polish people or state being blamed for Nazi crimes.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2018