Poland's newly-approved "Holocaust Law," which took effect on Thursday, has found its first victim: Argentina's Pagina12 website and newspaper.
The website featured a picture, taken posthumously, of a group of Polish partisans who fought the Soviet regime and died in 1950, the Polish League Against Defamation (RDI) explained. The picture was featured with December 2017 story about the Jedwabne massacre, which occurred in 1941 and saw at least 340 Jews butchered by their neighbors amid a power vacuum following Germany’s invasion into Poland.
RDI claimed that connecting the massacre with the partisans is "manipulation...against the Polish nation and the good name of Polish soldiers." The article, they claimed, showed "great historical ignorance, for which it should officially apologize to all Poles."
They also claimed that Pagina12's intent was to "confirm Polish anti-Semitism to its readers."
It is not clear whether the law can be applied retroactively. However, last Monday, Polish Ambassador to Israel Jacek Chodorowicz promised that the law would not be enforced before the Polish Justice Ministry had thoroughly examined it.
The law, approved by the Polish Senate, was frozen last month by the Polish government. It allows a sentence of up to three years in prison for anyone ascribing "responsibility or co-responsibility to the Polish nation or state for crimes committed by the German Third Reich."