Jewish Museum blasts ‘Polish concentration camps’ media gaffes
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
08.11.2011 13:21
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw has joined a campaign against the use of the misleading term “Polish concentration camps” in the international media.
The campaign, which is led by the US-based Kosciuszko Foundation, concerns WWII German Nazi concentration and death camps built on the territory of occupied Poland.
“The use of such a term [Polish concentration camps] creates an incorrect picture of responsibility for the creation of Holocaust sites on the terrain of occupied Poland, and is a historical lie,” the museum clarified in a statement on its official website.
Some 261,000 people have signed the Kosciuszko Foundation's appeal to date, including President of Poland Bronislaw Komorowski and noted historian Professor Norman Davies.
As a result of the action, a number of newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have adapted their editorial guidelines to avoid slip-ups regarding the subject.
Poles remain sensitive about the matter, owing to the fact that Poles of all ethic backgrounds were murdered at the Nazi death camps, and their was no puppet government of collaborators in occupied Poland.
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews was established in 2005, through and agreement between the Ministry of Culture, the City of Warsaw and the Jewish Historical Institute, and it is due to be fully opened in 2013. (nh/pg)