Poland’s foreign minister summons Israeli ambassador over Yad Vashem post

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s foreign minister said Monday that he was summoning the Israeli ambassador over a post by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial institution.

Yad Vashem wrote on X on Sunday that “Poland was the first country where Jews were forced to wear a distinctive yellow badge in order to isolate them from the surrounding population.”

Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski appealed to Yad Vashem to “post afresh” and make a reference to “German-occupied” Poland. Polish officials have been for years objecting to language that might falsely attribute crimes of Nazi Germany to Poland.

The previous nationalist conservative government even came close to imposing a prison sentence on those suggesting that the Polish nation was complicit in Nazi crimes.

In its post published on Sunday, Yad Vashem described how, on Nov. 23, 1939, “Hans Frank, the governor of the Generalgouvernement issued an order that all Jews aged 10 and above must wear a white cloth armband 10 cm wide marked with a blue Star of David on their right arm.”

Nazi Germany-occupied Poland in September 1939, a date which constitutes the start of World War II. Six million Jews and others were killed in the ensuing Holocaust, many in Nazi death camps located on occupied Polish territory.

Beyond Sikorski, others in Poland criticized the language used by Yah Vashem, including Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Yad Vashem responded to the criticism on social media but only to specify: “As noted by many users and specified explicitly in the linked article, it was done by order of the German authorities.”

On Monday, Sikorski announced that he was summoning the Israeli ambassador “since the misleading post has not been amended.”

BERLIN (AP) — Traditional Christmas markets are opening across Germany on Monday, drawing revelers to their wooden stands with mulled wine, grilled sausages, potato pancakes or caramelized apples.

Security has been stepped up, with memories of two deadly attacks on Christmas markets still fresh for many Germans.

In Berlin, the famous market at the city’s Gedächtniskirche church opened with a public service on Monday morning. Other openings included the Christmas markets at the Rotes Rathaus city hall, Gendarmenmarkt and Charlottenburg Palace.

Vendors sell not only snacks and drinks but also handmade candles, wool hats, gloves and shiny Christmas stars in all colors and shapes. Children enjoy rides on chain carousels, Ferris wheels and skating on ice rinks.

Christmas markets are an annual tradition that Germans have cherished since the Middle Ages — and successfully exported to much of the Western world.

Security is an issue at all markets across the county.

Last year, five women and a boy died, and many were injured in a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg on Dec. 20 that lasted just over a minute. The attacker is currently on trial in Magdeburg.

On Dec. 19, 2016, an attacker plowed through a crowd of Christmas market-goers at Gedächtniskirche church in Berlin with a truck, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more in the German capital. The Muslim militant was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

In the western city of Cologne, the Christmas market in front of the city’s famous double-domed cathedral was packed with big crowds on Saturday.

“We sense a very good atmosphere here, so we feel that in these difficult times we are currently experiencing, we can give visitors a little moment of respite here,” said Birgit Grothues, the spokeswoman for the market. “We see many smiling faces under our illuminated tent.”

Nonetheless, she said that after last year’s attack in Magdeburg, the city created a special security concept for its markets in close cooperation with police. It includes an additional anti-terrorism barrier and private security, she said.

Associated Press writer Daniel Niemann in Cologne, Germany, contributed to this report.