Poland calls in Israeli ambassador over Yad Vashem exhibit
Warsaw strongly objected on Monday to how Poland was referred to in a post on X regarding the Star of David that was put out by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust over the weekend.
The Polish Foreign Ministry said it was calling in the Israeli ambassador to protest, charging that the post was misleading. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski noted, also on X, that the Yad Vashem post had not been corrected.
On Sunday, Yad Vashem wrote: “Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinctive badge in order to isolate them from the surrounding population,” alongside a photo of a yellow Star of David Badge with the word “Jude” – German for Jew – written inside.
It added that in November 1939, Hans Frank, as governor, had issued an order that all Jews aged 10 and above had to wear a white cloth armband marked with a blue Star of David on their right arm.
Warsaw said that an essential explanation that Poland was Nazi-occupied at the time was lacking from the exhibition. Yad Vashem had also failed to mention that Frank was a German officer appointed by the occupiers.
Sikorski posted on X: “Please specify that it was ‘German-occupied,'” in a remark addressed to Yad Vashem.
In response, Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan acknowledged that Poland was indeed at the time under German occupation. “This is clearly reflected in our material. Any other interpretation misreads our commitment to accuracy,” he said.
Poland and Israel have frequently been in conflict over how Poland is represented with respect to World War II.
