The law is stupid of course and an attempt to fight for their point of view(that is: xenophobic, racist and intolerant), but history is a subject rather widely discussed in Poland with all the sides being represented in media.
There are some who like to call Nazi death camps 'Polish death camps' because they were located in Nazi occupied Poland. This, of course, is frowned on by Poland. It is seen as a way of blaming Poland for Germany's crimes, while the people who do it play innocent and claim they are merely stating 'true facts' about the locations of the camps.
You're also not allowed to refer to camps like Zgoda or Jaworzno - which were labour camps operated by poles on behalf of the communist regime - as 'Polish concentration camps'.
It's a bit of a mess. If you're given a task of running a camp from occupying forces, I can't imagine you have much real choice (or you end up in one yourself). Then again, "just following orders" is not a great defence either. I wish people didn't try to make that black&while.
Or to add a different story, a family member sent to a Soviet camp told everyone not to retaliate against neighbours who testified against him - because they were likely forced to do so.
Or think of Nazi-run weapon factories in occupied countries where locals were forced to work. (And sometimes managed to sabotage production quality)
I'll tell you a secret. Poles are exceptionally adept at duplicity and censoring their history. Chopin, Konopnicka were likely gay? LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! Józef Bem converted to Islam and still acted like a Polish patriot? Let's talk about something else. Such and such poets or composers etc were jewish? You're either a Jew or a Polish Catholic, obviously. Poland never attacked any countries. Poland didn't initially try an alliance with Hitler and annex a part of Czechoslovakia. The word "pogrom" doesn't come from Polish, no no. And before "pogrom", "tumult" wasn't used as an euphemism. Aggression towards immigrants doesn't contradict Christianity. Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was perfect and it collapsed only because it was attacked by neighbors. All countries bordering with Poland love Poland. Poland is the fountain of innovation, it's only a coincidence the most famous Polish people lived outside Poland.
There's literally a common phrase "Poland is the Christ of nations." - Mickiewicz, the chief poet. You can only be the Christ if you're without fault.
edit: this post is getting downvoted :D. I was never good at Polish doublethink, cared too much about facts.
it's getting downvoted because you said this in the most racist sounding way possible.
"Various polish governments have done XYZ" vs. "polish people lie". It's similar to "Israel does XYZ to Palestinians" vs "Jews want XYZ to happen to Palestinians" (to use a common antisemitic trope trying to justify antisemitism)
Incidentally, Poles are one of the purest or most inbred nations in Europe, and you have no one else but Adolf Hitler to thank for it. You see echoes of that in Witcher 3, I know it caused some controversy overseas because of how uniformly white everyone is. No malicious intent there, just modern Poles projecting their world back in time. Between WW1 and WW2, percentage of people identifying as Poles was less than 70%. Today it's 97%.
There's a point after which you can say there's a pattern and not just a bunch of samples. When we're talking about populations we're talking in terms of averages and distributions, and the average in Poland is much like I described. In my opinion history of Poland is the second state religion, after catholicism, 91% as of 2018. And if you say many young people don't actually go to church, you're making my point (duplicity and appeasing peer pressure).
97% and 91%. Maybe it's you who don't know what you're talking about?
I only found out recently that you need to go through a lengthy process back in the church where you were baptised in order to renounce yourself from the Catholic church here in Poland. Just being an atheist, not attending church, not believing, not supporting the organisation is enough. You need to go to your place of baptism, have multiple talks with the priest there, then fill out some forms, wait some time, etc.
I wonder if people actually know this, and how many actually go through the pain of "de-registering" themselves from this organisation.
I also wonder how this affects things like "official statistics" of Catholics in the country.
Regarding Witcher 3 there is a very simple reason for nearly all the people being white. It's because the region is in turmoil and there's a war going on. So all the people (of different skin colour, different race) that can leave have already done so.
The process is why I don't bother. I was baptized when I was little and I don't consider that a proper contract. If they want to use bad input data, I'll let them deceive themselves. Going to the church and pleading is not only somewhat humiliating, it validates the contract between a little child and a very large organization.
"Colorful" people leaving because of a war implies a racist society where unusual people are merely tolerated at best of times. History is more complex than that. Duke Mieszko I, the first recorded ruler of Poland, gifted a camel (according to Thietmar) to Otto III, future emperor. That was in A.D. 986.
Not necessarily that colourful people leave, but that outsiders leave. For one because they can and have somewhere else to go to, but the other because if they stay they will be viewed with suspicion and bad things might happen to them.
The Witcher series has been full of fearful populaces wary and hostile to outsiders/other races (Dwarves and Elves in this case).
These laws are in response to people, some of them misguided but many of them doubtlessly neo-nazis, calling Auschwitz a 'polish camp'. The law has unfortunate edge cases but I think it was well motivated. If you tally up all the Poles who knowingly and willingly collaborated with Nazis and compare that with the number of Poles murdered by the Nazis, I think it's clear that calling Auschwitz a 'polish camp' is monstrous. And while the matter of Zgoda should be taken seriously, it should also be kept in context. Less than two thousand people died at Zgoda, which is certainly a horrible crime. But that number represents what, a few hours at Auschwitz? It was more at Jaworzno, but still less than a single day at Auschwitz. It is any wonder the matter of these camps was overlooked in the formulation of a law targetting neo-nazis who want to disassociate Germany from Auschwitz?
It's not what I'd call a great law. But I think it's a law with a wholly reasonable motivation.
> The bill was proposed by the country’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and calls for up to three years in prison or a fine for accusing the Polish state or people of involvement or responsibility for the Nazi occupation during World War II
The law has since passed, tho it was later amended to remove the prison time portion.
No one sensible is accusing "the Polish state" or "the Polish people" of being involved with the Holocaust, and the Wikipedia page itself doesn't state anything like that. The law is aimed at hateful idiocy like talking about the supposed "Polish death camps", as opposed to the tragically real Nazi death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland.
The wikipedia page I linked to clearly points out that polish people WERE involved in the holocaust. Not all, in fact I believe the vast majority of poles were not collaborators... but that doesn't mean this law doesn't make it legally sketchy to talk about the poles who were collaborators
Polish people were exterminated on a daily basis by German nazis. Over 5 million Poles were brutally killed. It is hard to miss German attack and occupation of Poland aim was also to depopulate it from polish people.
Collaborators were punished because they were traitors and everyone seen and sees them like such.
Below is a link to a Wikipedia where you can learn more:
> Especially in the early weeks of the German offensive, many thousands of Jews were murdered by members of local communities in the western parts of the previously Soviet zone, such as the Baltic countries, eastern Poland, and western Ukraine.
I am absolutely not trying to paint a complex situation in black and white. The article you linked to also points out how many non-jewish poles were killed, how many non-jewish poles helped jewish poles at great risk to themselves, etc. but the idea that you can “other” collaborator poles out of being poles is denying the reality.
I visited a Nazi extermination camp in Poland where you could literally see the adjacent town from inside the camp fences. It's absolute lunacy to pretend there weren't Polish collaborators.
It's an absolute lunacy to think that because a group of people lives nearby a place where something bad is going on, it is certain that among them are people helping with it.
The law is stupid of course and an attempt to fight for their point of view(that is: xenophobic, racist and intolerant), but history is a subject rather widely discussed in Poland with all the sides being represented in media.