On Sunday, Yad Vashem wrote on X that “Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinctive badge in order to isolate them from the surrounding population.” The scandalous post did not mention the real perpetrators – the Germans.
The Yad Vashem post sparked strong emotions and numerous comments.
“Historians at Yad Vashem possess extensive knowledge of events from the Second World War. Therefore, if Yad Vashem introduced such drastic distortions in its post, this is not a mistake or a lack of knowledge. It is a deliberate provocation. And since Yad Vashem is a fully state institution, this is an incident that requires immediate intervention at the state level. Meanwhile, there is no visible reaction from the Polish government,”
former Prime Minister Beata Szydło commented.
Historycy z Yad Vashem mają bardzo szeroką wiedzę o wydarzeniach z czasów II wojny światowej. Dlatego, jeśli w swoim wpisie Yad Vashem dokonało tak drastycznych przekłamań, to nie jest to pomyłka, czy brak wiedzy. To jest celowa prowokacja. A ponieważ Yad Vashem jest instytucją w…
— Beata Szydło (@BeataSzydlo) November 23, 2025
Eventually, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, tagging Yad Vashem’s account on X, wrote: “Please specify that it was ‚German-occupied’ Poland.”
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in Oświęcim reacted strongly to the Yad Vashem post, describing the message shared by the institute on X as “false and distorting history.” In its statement, the museum stressed that Yad Vashem should be an institution that knows historical facts, meaning it should be “fully aware that Poland at the time was under German occupation, and that it was the Germans who introduced and enforced this antisemitic law.”
And the response? On Sunday, the Yad Vashem institute pointed out on X that the article linked beneath its post contains information stating that the order to wear armbands with the Star of David was issued by the German authorities. However, the original post was not corrected and continues to mislead – users on X added a contextual note clearly indicating German responsibility.