Poland's Senate leader has urged Polish nationals living abroad to report to the authorities any statements deemed damaging to "Poland's good name" – part of a wider campaign by the government to defend the country against what it calls historical untruths and slander.
The letter, posted recently on the Senate's website and reported by German media Thursday, comes amid controversy surrounding new Polish legislation, ratified earlier this month, that penalizes attributing the crimes of Nazi Germany to the Polish nation. Artistic and research work is exempted and the government insists the law is not intended to block historical research, but critics say its wording is unclear.
Israel has protested the law, saying it could limit discussion about the Holocaust and whitewash the role some Poles played during Germany's brutal occupation of Poland from 1939 to 1945. The United States has also expressed "disappointment" over the law.
Observers say the campaign, which includes a website and ads on YouTube, is an effort by the ruling Law and Justice party to consolidate its power by rallying voters around the idea that Poland needs to be defended against a hostile outside world.
In his letter, sent last week to Polish organizations worldwide, Senate Speaker Stanislaw Karczewski appealed to members to "document and react to" displays of anti-Polish sentiments and "statements and opinions that hurt" Poland's good name, and to report them to Polish diplomatic missions. He also urged them to record first-hand testimony of World War II crimes from Polish and Jewish witnesses and survivors.
The letter acknowledges that individual Poles committed shameful deeds during the war, but says they were not typical of the entire nation.
In Germany, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party called the letter "regrettable."
"This partisan tactic aims to spread the feeling in Poland that they're being treated unjustly abroad," Norbert Roettgen was quoted as telling the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung on Thursday.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in an interview with Germany's Die Welt daily newspaper that Poland's point of view should be made known.
He said the debate around the law had made him aware of the need for joint research that would reveal how many Poles actually committed crimes against Jews, but would also place the facts in their "terrible" wartime context.
