Opinion | Poland Digs Itself a Memory Hole<br />But on Jan. 26, the Sejm renewed the project, approving an article stipulating a punishment of up to three years in prison for those who “publicly<br />and against the facts attribute to the Polish nation or the Polish state responsibility or co-responsibility for Nazi crimes committed by the German Third Reich” or for “other crimes against peace, humanity or war crimes.”<br />The Polish Center for Holocaust Research responded: “We consider the adopted law a tool intended to facilitate the ideological manipulation<br />and imposition of the history policy of the Polish state.”<br />In this context (arguably not entirely unlike the present one in the United States), xenophobia — against Jews, Ukrainians, Muslims, Roma, L. G.B.<br />It was the publication of Mr. Gross’s “Neighbors” that motivated the first attempts, in 2006 during the first Law and Justice government, to enshrine historical policy by criminalizing the denial<br />that Poles were innocent of any Nazi or Communist crimes.<br />This draft law is part of a program introduced in the past two years, named by the Law<br />and Justice government “a good change.” The change has included attempts to legalize government control of the media and introduce draconian anti-abortion laws.<br />Communists once spoke of “enemies of the people.” Today Mr. Kaczynski labels those who criticize the government “the worst sort<br />of Poles.” They are those who reject the “joyous mood” of authentic Poles, otherwise called Law and Justice supporters.
