Polish president asks government to guarantee Netanyahu won’t be arrested on Auschwitz visit

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

President Andrzej Duda has written to Prime Minister Donald Tusk asking him to guarantee that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant if he visits Poland this month to attend the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

News of the letter was first reported on Wednesday evening by Bloomberg, which said it had obtained a copy of the document. On Thursday, Polish news website Interia published a partial image of and longer quotes from the letter, which is dated 8 January.

Subsequently, the head of Duda’s chancellery, Małgorzata Paprocka, confirmed to state broadcaster TVP that the letter had been sent.

In it, Duda wrote:

“If the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, were to express his willingness to personally participate in the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, the government of Poland should guarantee him an undisturbed stay on the territory of our country in these absolutely exceptional circumstances, despite the arrest warrant issued in November last year by the International Criminal Court.”

The president added that he trusts the government can “draw on the rich traditions in the field of legal protection of foreign missions arriving in Poland to find an appropriate formula for the above-mentioned guarantees, reconciling respect for international law with the extraordinary nature of the [Auschwitz] anniversary”.

He also emphasised that Poland has a “mission to protect the truth and memory of the Holocaust”, including “creating conditions so that, especially in this place and at this special moment, every Jew can honour the memory of over six million of their murdered brethren”.

On 21 November last year, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the armed conflict with Palestine. All of the ICC’s 124 members, including Poland, are in theory obliged to arrest the pair if they enter their territory.

Last month, a leading Polish newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, reported that Netanyahu is not planning to attend the 27 January anniversary at the former German-Nazi camp of Auschwitz – which is located in what is now Poland – due to fear of arrest.

The newspaper said that “the Israeli authorities did not even ask for Prime Minister Netanyahu to participate in the ceremony” because “they knew what Warsaw’s response would be”.

Speaking to Rzeczpospolita, Polish deputy foreign minister Władysław Bartoszewski, who is responsible for coordinating the anniversary event, said that “we are obliged to respect the decisions of the ICC”.

Meanwhile, anonymous Polish diplomatic sources told the newspaper that Poland is determined to ensure that Vladimir Putin, who is also subject to an ICC warrant, eventually appears before the court. “That is why we must abide by its decisions,” they said.

However, Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, condemned Poland’s position, saying it had missed “the most important moment to say ‘never again’ in the 80-year commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz” and to stand with Israel “in response to the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust”.

She argued that the ICC warrants represent the “hijacking and weaponisation of international law and its infrastructures for the systematic demonisation and delegitimisation and application of double standards toward the state of Israel, the proverbial Jew among the nations”.

A number of American conservative media outlets and commentators have also criticised Poland and called on it to grant Netanyahu safe passage. In an opinion piece published this week, the National Review warned that the issue could harm Poland’s relations with the new Trump administration.

Duda is a conservative who enjoys close relations with Donald Trump while Tusk is a more liberal figure who has previously criticised Trump and has regularly clashed with the Polish president.

Speaking today to TVP, foreign ministry spokesman Paweł Wroński noted that there has been no request for Netanyahu to attend the Auschwitz anniversary. He added that media reports claiming Bartoszewski had said the Israeli prime minister would be arrested if he came to Poland are “disinformation”.

Last month, after Rzeczpospolita‘s original report, Bartoszewski issued a statement noting that he had never specifically said that Netanyahu would be arrested. However, he also added that Poland “adheres to all international agreements, treaties and obligations that she has signed and ratified”.

Holocaust history has regularly been a cause of diplomatic tensions between Poland and Israel in recent years. In 2022, Israel suspended Holocaust education trips to Poland due to differences between the two governments over their form and content.

However, the following year, the two countries reached an agreement for them to resume. But some Israeli historians and opposition figures criticised that deal as a “surrender” to Poland and its interpretation of Second World War history.

Auschwitz was originally set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland as a camp to house Polish “political” prisoners before later becoming primarily a site for the murder of Jews.

At least 1.3 million victims were transported there, with at least 1.1 million of them killed at the camp. Around one million of those victims were Jews, most of whom were murdered in gas chambers immediately after their arrival. The second largest group of victims numerically were ethnic Poles.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.