Two Holocaust survivors and a Polish anti-Nazi resistance fighter have filed a lawsuit against the publisher of books praising Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in a civil case that the plaintiffs' lawyers said on Monday is the first of its kind in Poland.
The lawsuit against Katmar, a publisher based in the Baltic port city of Gdansk, focuses on two pro-Nazi propaganda books by Belgian Nazi collaborator and SS officer Leon Degrelle entitled The Age of Hitler 1, The Age of Hitler 2 and Hitler the Democrat.
Degrelle led Belgium's far-right Rex Party before the war, and then became a Nazi SS officer decorated by Hitler.
"The promotion of Nazism and Holocaust denial is a criminal offence in Poland, and in theory prosecutable in the criminal courts, but in practice public prosecutors fail to act effectively in the majority of cases," Wojciech Kozlowski, a lawyer with the Dentons global solicitors, told AFP.