WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The last surviving Christian Poles who helped Jews during the Holocaust are appealing to Polish and Israeli authorities to return to a path of "dialogue and reconciliation" amid a diplomatic crisis and bitter emotions sparked by a new Polish law that criminalizes some forms of Holocaust speech.

The letter, published Monday, is addressed to the governments and parliaments of Israel and Poland.

It is signed by 50 Poles who describe themselves as the last survivors of the more than 6,700 Poles who have been recognized by Israel's Yad Vashem as "Righteous Among the Nations" — gentiles who risked their own lives to help Jews during the Holocaust.

They wrote that they oppose divisions being sown between Poles and Jews and seek a "future based on friendship, solidarity and truth."