(ANSA-AFP) - WARSAW, 21 JAN - Poland's president will skip a high-profile Holocaust forum in Jerusalem on Thursday after being denied the chance to make a speech there as Warsaw struggles to counter false Russian claims about Poland's role in World War II. The forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre will mark 75 years since the Soviet Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau German death camp, an enduring symbol of the Holocaust where the Nazis killed more than 1.1 million people. Co-organised by a close Kremlin ally, the event will notably be attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, and US Vice President Mike Pence, who have been given the chance to speak. The forum is seen as rivalling the official ceremony marking the war anniversary on January 27 at the site of the former death camp in the southern Polish city of Oswiecim, where Polish President Andrzej Duda is expected to make an address. Duda said he declined the invitation to Jerusalem because he would not have an opportunity to respond should Putin use the event to again lob accusations of anti-Semitism against Poland. Last month Putin provoked an outcry after he made the false claim that Poland had colluded with Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler and contributed to the outbreak of World War II. (ANSA-AFP).