A book published by Professor Dariusz Ratajczak earlier this year suggested that Nazi Germany did not have a comprehensive plan to exterminate Jews.

Denying the Holocaust in Poland is a crime

In Poland, public statements denying the Holocaust are treated as criminal offences and are subject to prison terms of up to three years.

In the book, Professor Ratajczak, aged 37, states that the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps were intended to disinfect prisoners, not to exterminate them.

He also says that only three million Jews died in the Holocaust not the six million which most historians accept as fact.

'Summarising opinions'

The professor, however, maintains he is not guilty of historical revisionism and said he was merely summarising the opinions of historians who deny the Holocaust.

He was suspended from his position at the University of Opole following complaints made by an official commission investigating Nazi crimes in Poland.