A “today in history” tweet by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum highlighting how Jews were forced to wear a yellow badge during World War Two sparked a firestorm in Poland on Monday, with the Israeli ambassador being summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw.
The incident began when Yad Vashem tweeted on Sunday that “Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinctive yellow badge in order to isolate them from the surrounding population,” with a link to an article on the topic.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski appealed to Yad Vashem to make it clear in the post that Poland had been “German-occupied” at the time.
Yad Vashem responded to the criticism on social media by resharing the post and specifying that: “As noted by many users and specified explicitly in the linked article, it was done by order of the German authorities,” but without amending the original tweet.
Poland’s top diplomat then tweeted anew that he was summoning the Israeli ambassador “since the misleading post has not been amended,” and tagged U.S. Ambassador to Poland Tom Rose.
The incident quickly snowballed and Yad Vashem was widely condemned across Poland.
The Auschwitz Memorial, which runs the site of the former Nazi death camp in Poland, also criticized the Yad Vashem post.
“It seems that if anyone should know historical facts, it is @YadVashem,” the memorial posted on X. “They should be fully aware that Poland at that time was occupied by Germany, and that it was Germany that introduced and enforced this antisemitic law.”
Nazi Germany occupied Poland in September 1939, which triggered the start of World War II.
More than three million of Poland’s Jews were killed by Nazi Germany, accounting for about half of the Jews in Europe murdered during the Holocaust.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the incident.
Dani Dayan, Yad Vashem’s chair, defended the museum.
“Yad Vashem presents the historical realities of Nazism and WWII, including countries under German occupation, control or influence,” he wrote in another tweet. “Poland was indeed under German occupation. This is clearly reflected in our material. Any other interpretation misreads our commitment to accuracy.”
