Poland has demanded an apology from Washington after President Barack Obama spoke of a \u201cPolish death camp\u201d while announcing an award to a resistance fighter for alerting the world to the Nazi Holocaust, largely perpetrated on Polish soil.<\/p>\n
The matter is a delicate one in Poland, which suffered a brutal Nazi occupation during World War Two and has long campaigned against suggestions it bore any responsibility for the slaughter of some 6 million European Jews.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe White House will apologise for the outrageous mistake,\u201d Foreign Minister Rados\u0142aw Sikorski wrote on his Twitter account on Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a pity that ignorance and incompetence overshadowed such a momentous ceremony.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Sikorski said he did not suspect Obama of ill will and blamed the \u201cgrave mistake\u201d on the White House\u2019s speech writers and press service.<\/p>\n
U.S. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said: \u201cThe president misspoke \u2013 he was referring to Nazi death camps in Poland. We regret this misstatement, which should not detract from the clear intention to honour Mr. Karski and those brave citizens who stood on the side of human dignity in the face of tyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, speaking after the issue filled Polish media on Wednesday, said: \u201cWhen somebody says \u2018Polish death camps\u2019 it is as if there were no Nazis, no German responsibility, no Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n
He urged Washington to make up for the mistake by actively supporting Warsaw\u2019s drive against such rhetoric.<\/p>\n
The posthumous award for Jan Karski was to honour him for bringing some of the first eyewitness testimony of the Holocaust to the outside world, after he was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Nazi camp (read post\u00a0US Medal of Freedom for Jan Karski<\/a>)<\/p>\n Karski travelled to London, Washington and elsewhere urging action to prevent the mass extermination of Jews.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s Yad Vashem institute has awarded Karski the Righteous Among the Nations title for his efforts to aid Jews, and to more than 6,300 other Poles, more than any other nationality, despite the fact that Poland\u2019s history is littered with anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n Some 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland before 1939. Most perished during World War Two, among nearly 6 million Polish deaths in total.<\/p>\n A museum dedicated to the history of Polish Jews is now under construction in the capital Warsaw.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should use this huge gaffe to make sure nobody, nowhere in the world, ever says that again,\u201d said Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa, Poland\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize winner.<\/p>\n Do nast<\/strong>\u0119pnego razu… <\/strong>(Till next time…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Poland has demanded an apology from Washington after President Barack Obama spoke of a \u201cPolish death camp\u201d while announcing an award to a resistance fighter for alerting the world to the Nazi Holocaust, largely perpetrated on Polish soil. The matter is a delicate one in Poland, which suffered a brutal Nazi occupation during World War…<\/p>\n