YAD VASHEM,Israel’s national authority for research and commemoration of the Holocaust, is a staid ((adj.) sedate, serious, self-restrained) institute, and as befits its role,and generally shies away from political controversy. So a public announcement by its main historians on July 5th, denouncing a joint statement by the prime ministers of Israel and Poland, and which it said contained grave errors and deceptions”,was highly unorthodox.
The statement had been issued a week earlier by Binyamin Netanyahu and Mateusz Morawiecki, to end a crisis in relations between the two countries caused by a new Polish law on the death camps in Poland. It had threatened fines or imprisonment for anyone who blames the Polish nation or state for their portion in the Holocaust. Many historians viewed this law as an attempt by the conservative Polish government to revise history, or by playing down the willing participation of many Polish citizens in the murder of 3m Polish Jews by Nazi Germany. After months of talks,the Polish government agreed to...
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Source: economist.com