BREAKING NEWS

Merkel dodges question on Poland's new Holocaust law

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel declined to comment on Saturday on a Polish law that imposes jail terms for suggesting the country was complicit in the Holocaust, saying she did not want to wade into Poland's internal affairs.
The law would impose prison sentences of up to three years for using the phrase "Polish death camps" and for suggesting "publicly and against the facts" that the Polish nation or state was complicit in Nazi Germany's crimes.
"Without directly interfering in the legislation in Poland, I would like to say the following very clearly as German chancellor: We as Germans are responsible for what happened during the Holocaust, the Shoah, under National Socialism (Nazism)," Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.
She was responding to a question from a student who had asked whether the new Polish law curbs freedom of expression.