Some of the last surviving Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust called for dialogue and reconciliation between Poland and Israel on Monday, amid an unprecedented row over a law making it illegal to attribute Nazi crimes to the Polish state.

The call was made in an open letter signed by 50 Poles honoured as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial for risking their own lives to save Jews.

"We Righteous... call on the governments of Israel and Poland to return to dialogue and reconciliation," said the letter.

"We reject discord between Jews and Poles" who are "linked by a 1,000-year history of coexistence", it said, adding that "hundreds of Poles lost their lives for their gestures of solidarity" with Jews under the Nazi occupation.

The Holocaust legislation, which takes effect on March 1, penalises statements attributing Nazi German crimes to the Polish state with fines or a jail terms of up to three years.

Poland's right-wing government has faced international criticism over the law, which was meant to protect Poland from false accusations of complicity in the Holocaust.

Israel sees it as a bid to deny the participation of individual Poles in killing Jews or handing them over to the Nazis.

It is also concerned the legislation could open the door to prosecuting Holocaust survivors for their testimony, something that Poland denies.

- 'We were afraid of them too' -

"As in every nation, in ours, there were also despicable people who acted of their own accord, not in the name of the Polish state. They were Poles and we were afraid of them too," the letter said.

Yad Vashem has recognised more than 26,500 people who saved Jews from the Holocaust, including more than 6,700 Poles.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki triggered fury in Israel and the international Jewish community by saying that there were also "Jewish perpetrators" of the Holocaust, referring to Jews who served in police units in ghettos set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the remark "unacceptable" and tantamount to denying the Holocaust.

Morawiecki's spokeswoman later insisted his remarks "were by no means intended to deny the Holocaust, or charge the Jewish victims of the Holocaust with responsibility for what was a Nazi German perpetrated genocide".

EU President Donald Tusk warned Poland on Friday against "anti-semitic excesses" and other behaviour that risked ruining Warsaw's global standing.

Tusk, a former Polish premier, said he had told Morawiecki on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels that negative opinions about Warsaw were turning into a "tsunami".

Poland was attacked and occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II, losing six million of its citizens, including three million Jews.

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