Polish foreign ministry spokesman Maciej Wewiór said Finkelstein met Deputy Foreign Minister Wojciech Zajączkowski when he visited the ministry.
The meeting took place after Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski called in the envoy in response to a post published by Yad Vashem on November 23 on the X social media platform.
Wewiór told reporters that the ambassador “accepted with understanding” Poland’s reaction to the post. He added that Warsaw was not seeking an apology from Yad Vashem, but a change in the wording of the message.
“There will be no consent on our part to such a simplification of history and the omission of important facts,” Wewiór said.
He added that Yad Vashem is an important institution that conducts research and education about the Holocaust and “must be aware of the weight of the language it uses.”
In its original post, Yad Vashem wrote that "Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinguishing badge, intended to segregate them from the surrounding population."
The post went on to note that on November 23, 1939, Hans Frank, the Nazi German governor of the General Government in occupied Poland, ordered that all Jews aged 10 and over wear a white armband with a blue Star of David on their right arm.
The institute linked to a longer article about antisemitic legislation.
Sikorski reacted on Sunday, asking Yad Vashem to clarify that when Jews in Poland were forced to wear armbands with the Star of David, the country was under German occupation during World War II. That occupation began after Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.
On Sunday evening, Yad Vashem wrote that the linked article already stated that the armband order had been issued by German authorities.
On Monday, the head of Yad Vashem, Dani Dayan, said on X that his institution "presents the historical realities of Nazism and WWII, including countries under German occupation, control or influence."
He added that "Poland was indeed under German occupation" and that this was "clearly reflected" in Yad Vashem’s material.
Wewiór said on Tuesday that Poland expected the short post itself to be corrected.
He expressed hope that Poland’s protest against what he called an oversimplification of history would be heard by other institutions in Israel and that the wording of the post would eventually be changed.
The original message from Yad Vashem drew strong reactions from key Polish institutions.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in the southern city of Oświęcim, which runs the memorial at the site of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, called the post “a false message that distorts history.”
The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a Polish state body that researches Nazi and communist crimes against the Polish nation, said that "a lack of knowledge about the German regulations imposed on Polish society enslaved by the German Reich (including Jews), or ignoring them, is unbecoming of institutions such as Yad Vashem."
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sharply criticised Yad Vashem's statement, calling it a "disgrace." He said he hoped "they will not do such foolish things again."
Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, was established in Jerusalem in 1953 by a decision of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. It serves as a central institution for documentation, research, education and commemoration of the Holocaust. Its collections and exhibitions preserve evidence of the murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP