EU comes to aid of Poland over WWII row with Russia

STRASBOURG, France — The European Union executive comes to the aid of Poland, which is involved in a bitter dispute with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Poland’s role in World War II.

EU Commissioner Vera Jourova tells the parliament Wednesday that she “rejects any false claim” that paints Poland as a perpetrator instead of a victim of the 1939-1945 war. She says she “will not tolerate these attacks on Poland.”

Putin has said on several occasions that Poland bears responsibility for the outbreak of the war. The remarks have deepened tensions between the two nations.

Jourova’s comments come during a debate on “Distortion of European history and remembrance of the Second World War,” which ended 75 years ago this year.

Manfred Weber, the head of the EPP Christian Democrat group, says that people “cannot accept Putin’s attempt to rewrite history.”

The Polish prime minister has said Putin has been deliberately lying with his remarks, and argued that Putin is doing it to deflect from recent Russian political failures.

World War II began in 1939 when Poland was invaded first by Nazi Germany, then by the Soviet Union two weeks later. The dual occupation came days after the two totalitarian states signed a pact with a secret protocol to carve up Poland and the Baltic states. Some 6 million Polish citizens were killed in the war, three million of them Jews.

— AP