Polish President Duda boycotts Holocaust memorial event in Israel

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda announced on Tuesday that he would not attend a Holocaust memorial event in Israel for the commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz to be held in January, after being told that he would not be given the floor to speak.
Poland’s outcry came after Russian President Vladimir Putin was given the word while Duda’s request has been denied, in what his government called “inadmissible”.
Tensions with Russia escalated after Putin claimed that Poland was partially responsible for the outbreak of WWII, with Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki accusing the Russian President of “deliberate WWII lies.”
The Yad Vashem memorial museum in Jerusalem has said that the speakers in the Fifth World Holocaust Forum will represent the winners of WWII, Emmanuel Macron from France, Putin from Russia, Prince Charles of the UK and a senior US official, – most likely Mike Pence, as well as the country that perpetrated the war, – Germany, “represented” by its President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“It turns out that the presidents of Russia, Germany and France – whose government collaborated with Nazi Germany at the time – will speak, but the organisers do not agree to a speech by the president of Poland,” Duda said in a television interview on Sunday.
Duda was seeking for a chance to correct what he perceives as “lies” about Poland’s role in the Holocaust, as the country has been trying to disconnect its name from the Nazi crimes committed within its territory.