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Israeli Ambassador to UN slams Poland’s Holocaust law

At a Holocaust memorial event, Israel’s ambassador to the UN warned against Polish legislation that many believe is attempting to rewrite history.

By: Margot Dudkevitch, World Israel News

Addressing an annual service to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day at the United Nations General Assembly, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon warned the world against allowing a legislation to pass that denies the truth and rewrites history.

Despite his warning, hours after the ceremony, the Polish Senate passed the controversial bill that will outlaw blaming the country of Poland for crimes of the Holocaust committed on its soil.

“On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we tell our children the unthinkable stories of this dark chapter in human history so that no tragedy of its kind will ever happen again,” Danon said. Warning against allowing any legislation that denies the truth and attempts to rewrite history, Danon added “as we honor those few brave souls who stood strongly against evil and saved Jews from death, we must not forget those who cooperated with the Nazi evildoers. We will firmly oppose any attempt to distort the truth.”

Danon also criticized the UN Human Rights Council report released earlier Wednesday saying, “The information published today by the Human Rights Council is more of the same.” The Council he said, “will now join history’s infamous list of anti-Semites and bigots who ultimately failed in their attempts to devastate the Jewish people.”

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Among those attending the ceremony were UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak and dozens of ambassadors from around the world.

Eva Lavi a Holocaust survivor from Krakow in Poland was also invited by Danon to address the ceremony. Lavi and her parents were saved by Oskar Schindler who put them on his list and convinced the Nazis at the time that despite her young age she was vital to his factory war efforts.

“I don’t forget who saved us from the Nazis’ hell, First the almighty God, to whom I pray and thank every day, second Mr. Oskar Schindler and third, my mother Felicia Ratz. We were on our way to his factory in Czechoslovakia but were sent to Auschwitz instead. Everyone knows what that name represents. But Schindler managed to get us out of this camp and we continued to the factory,” she said.

Lavi went on to say that now, in her eighties, she is a proud citizen of Israel and that all her family are serving or served in the Israel Defense Forces. “The Holocaust should be a significant warning of what might happen, when racism, violence and anti-Semitism permeate the world,” she warned.