Poland has intervened to prevent an author accused of anti-Semitism from receiving an award at a Polish diplomatic outpost in the United States.

A U.S.-based Polish group had planned to give awards at the Polish consulate in New York next week to three people. One, Ewa Kurek, has made claims that Jews had fun in the ghettos during the German occupation of Poland during World War II.

News of the initiative was threatening to become yet another public relations headache for a government dealing with an international backlash to a Holocaust speech law seen as attempted historical revisionism.

Andrzej Pawluszek, an adviser to Poland’s prime minister, said Wednesday that the award was never a government initiative but authorities acted to stop an event that would have been divisive.

(AP)