Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance

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The Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance of 2018 is a partly repealed Polish law that criminalized public speech attributing responsibility for the Holocaust to Poland or the Polish nation; the criminal provisions were removed again later that year, after international protests.^[1][2] Article 2a, addressing crimes against "Polish citizens" by "Ukrainian nationalists", also caused controversy.^[3] The legislation is part of the historical policy of the Law and Justice party which seeks to present a narrative of ethnic Poles exclusively as victims and heroes.^[3][4][5] The law was widely seen as an infringement on freedom of expression and on academic freedom, and as a barrier to open discussion on Polish collaborationism,^[3][6][7] leading to what has been described as "the biggest diplomatic crisis in [Poland's] recent history".^[8]

While the act does not mention the "Polish death camp" controversy (involving concentration camps that had been built by Nazi Germany during World War II on German-occupied Polish soil), the act's chief intent was to address that controversy.^[3] In 2019, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland ruled that Article 2a was void and non-binding.^[9]