Poland’s Foreign Ministry summoned Israel’s ambassador in Warsaw, Yaakov Finkelstein, for an urgent “clarification meeting” on Monday after Yad Vashem published a post on X stating that “Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinctive badge in order to isolate them from the surrounding population.”
The post triggered an uproar in Poland, where Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski responded by demanding that Yad Vashem make clear it was referring to Nazi-occupied Poland.
Polish officials pointed to statements from the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, whose spokesman wrote on X: “If anyone should know the historical facts, it is Yad Vashem. They are fully aware that Poland was occupied by Germany at the time, and it was Germany that introduced and enforced this antisemitic law.”
Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a member of the European Parliament, added: “Poland was the first victim of World War II, not a perpetrator of crimes. The Holocaust was a German crime — a fact that is not subject to negotiation or ‘reinterpretation.’”
Poland’s embassy in Israel also criticized the post, saying: “An institution that expects to be respected does not distort history. Beginning in September 1939, Poland was under brutal German Nazi and Soviet occupation. Claims that Poland enacted antisemitic measures ignore this reality and misrepresent the past.
Yad Vashem issues clarification — but Poland says it is insufficient
Following the wave of criticism, Yad Vashem published a clarification on X, writing: “As noted by many users and specified explicitly in the linked article, it was done by order of the German authorities. Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinctive badge in order to isolate them from the surrounding population. OTD 23 November 1939 Hans Frank, the governor of the General Government, issued an order that all Jews aged 10 and above must wear a white cloth armband 10 cm wide marked with a blue Star of David on their right arm.”
A senior Yad Vashem official said the clarification was posted “only for the sake of calm,” adding that “there was no substantive need for it.” He stressed that the original post contained no historical error.
Polish officials, however, said the clarification did not go far enough, arguing that Yad Vashem should have explicitly used phrases such as “German-occupied Poland” or “the German occupying authorities.”
'Disproportionate and irrelevant'
Sources at Yad Vashem said Poland’s reaction was “disproportionate and irrelevant to the content of the post,” adding that the institution had no intention of taking further steps on the matter. “The wording simply did not suit them, despite being accurate,” one source said.
The incident adds to years of diplomatic and legal tensions between Poland and Israel over Holocaust-related phrasing, with Warsaw placing strong emphasis on distinguishing the Polish state from the Nazi regime that occupied and controlled the country beginning in 1939.
The dispute comes against the backdrop of ongoing friction over the killing of Polish aid worker Damian Sobol in Gaza in April 2024, a case in which Poland has accused Israel of insufficient cooperation with investigators.