President Andrzej Duda said his decision to not participate in the World Holocaust Forum in Yad Vashem on Jan. 23 in Jerusalem was the right one.
Duda, who is currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, explained that he did all he could to be able to speak during the World Holocaust Forum in order to emphasize that those murdered in the Holocaust were also Polish citizens.
“Three million Polish Jews and three million Polish citizens who did not have Jewish heritage died. Those were huge losses for Poland,” he said, adding that he wanted to pay his respects to those who had fallen.
The Polish president pointed out that the one reason why he was not allowed to speak may have been related to the videos they planned to show at the commemoration, which showed the course of the Second World War but “did not show Polish participation in the fight against Germany.”
Duda accused Russian oligarch Moshe Kantor’s foundation, which organized the Yad Vashem forum, for distorting history and ignoring the struggle of Polish soldiers who had fought on every front of the Second World War.
“This again confirms that I made the right decision by not being there, because if I was, it would be hard for me to bear the situation, and I would have to do so in silence because I was not allowed to speak,” Duda noted.
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