Bennett said that while in Poland he was “determined to say explicitly what history has already proved — the Polish nation had a proven involvement in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust,” Bennett said Monday in announcing his trip that had been planned for later in the week.   “I am going to speak truth, where the truth took place,” he said. “The message is loud and clear: The past cannot be rewritten and the future we’ll write together.”

Bennett had been scheduled to speak to Polish students and to meet with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and Higher Education in Poland, Jarosław Gowin, Ynet reported. He was also to meet with Holocaust survivors and Righteous Among the Nations living in Poland. The visit was not coordinated with the Foreign Ministry, Haaretz reported.

Hours after Bennett announced the visit, Poland cancelled the visit, citing Bennett’s remarks.

“The government of Poland canceled my visit, because I mentioned the crimes of its people. I am honored,” Bennett said in a statement, which also was published on his Facebook page along with a photo of a past visit to Auschwitz.

The incident comes amid a standoff between Poland and Israel over legislation passed in both houses of the Polish Parliament which would criminalize rhetoric blaming Poland for Nazi crimes, including calling death camps set up on Polish soil by the Nazis “Polish death camps.” Poland’s president must still sign the legislation into law.

Historians of the era, Jewish groups, the U.S. State Department and the Israeli government are all critical of the law, which they said could inhibit academic freedom and distort the historical record of World War II.

“Now the next generation has an important lesson to learn on the Holocaust of our people, and I will make sure that they learn it. This decision of the Polish government will have a large role in handing down the lessons of the Holocaust, even if they intended on achieving a something else,” Bennett said in his statement.

“True, the extermination camps in Poland were built and operated by the Germans, and we must not allow them to avoid this responsibility. But many Poles all over their country informed, handed over or participated themselves in the murder of some 200,000 Jews during the Holocaust and even afterward,” the statement also said, adding: “Only a few thousand ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ risked their lives to save them. That’s the truth. I agreed to a dialogue based on the truth. The Polish government chose to avoid the truth. No legislation will change the past.”