Poles Unhappy with Obama’s Retraction, as Entire Polish Economy Is at Stake
Latest update: December 12th, 2012
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Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is angry at Obama.
Photo Credit: Kobi Gideon / Flash90
CBS News reported that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is still “unsatisfied” with the White House apology for a comment made by President Barack Obama on Tuesday, about a “Polish death camp,” and demanded a more “explicit reaction.”
“We expect that America, in connection with this very statement, will join our efforts and help us eradicate such false and unjust phrases once and for all,” said Tusk, according to the Polish government’s website. “We always react in the same way to ignorance, lack of knowledge and ill will which lead to the distortion of history. Such phrases are especially painful for Poland – Europe’s most affected country by World War II.”
On Tuesday, while awarding a posthumous Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a Polish resistance fighter, President Obama described how Karski was smuggled “into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp” to see for himself the atrocities taking place there.
Karski reported what he saw to President Roosevelt, in what Obama called “one of the first accounts of the Holocaust.”
Unfortunately, despite repeated pleas from Jewish leaders both in the U.S. and in Palestine, the Roosevelt administration did nothing to halt the shipment of Jews to the death camp, nor to disturb in any way the operation of those camps.
President Obama’s “Polish death camp” comment drew irate criticism from Polish officials, who would have preferred “German death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland,” or, simply, “Nazi death camp.”
One of the reasons Poland is so adamant regarding its historic role as victim, rather than collaborator, has to do with the possibility of being sued by Jewish Holocaust survivors for billions of dollars worth of property appropriated from Jews.
Last year, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski attacked the U.S. for its support of Jewish demands that Poland compensate Jews for property stolen from Jews during the Holocaust.
World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder said in reaction to Sikorski’s statement that “Poland is telling many elderly pre-war landowners, including Holocaust survivors, that they have no foreseeable hope of even a small measure of justice for the assets that were seized from them.”
Justice for Poland’s Jewish victims could result in the financial ruin of the Polish state, as an enormous part of that country’s wealth used to be owned by Jews who are no longer among us.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski accused Obama of “ignorance and incompetence,” and Premier Tusk suggested Obama’s view was a “distortion of history.”
The White House issued a statement saying the president had misspoken and expressed its regrets.
But Tusk was still not satisfied.
“I am certain that our American friends are capable of a more explicit reaction than issuing a correction and the spokesperson of the White House expressing regret, and that maybe they will once and for all eliminate such errors,” he said. “It is an issue to which we cannot be indifferent, for the sake of Poland, our country and our fellow countrymen. We cannot accept such words, even if they are uttered by the head of an ally superpower.”
In his daily press briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney recited the Warsaw-approved version of history, saying the president “was referring to the Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland.”
“As we’ve made clear, we regret the misstatement,” Carney said, adding that the error “should not detract from the clear intention to honor Mr. Karski” and other Polish citizens “who fought against the terrible tyranny of the Nazis.”
Carney said he was not aware of any plans for the president or anyone else in the administration to call the Polish Prime Minister.
tell a friendAbout the Author: JewishPress.com Senior Internet Editor Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published two fun books: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.
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2 Responses to “Poles Unhappy with Obama’s Retraction, as Entire Polish Economy Is at Stake”
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Rabbi Leon Pettyjohn.
You know what I don't like about Jews? They think WWII is only about them. This is just pure bull****. That what we are doing about Obama speech has nothing to do with Jews. In WWII there over 2 mln poles died. Not as many as Jews, but diffrence isn't that much 6 mln vs 2 mln is still mln. We have every right to demand apology from obama.
"One of the reasons Poland is so adamant regarding its historic role as victim, rather than collaborator, has to do with the possibility of being sued by Jewish Holocaust survivors for billions of dollars worth of property appropriated from Jews."
Perhaps it is Poland that should be apologizing, not Obama!
they were complicit. so was netherlands and switzerland. neutral my ass
It occurred to me that Pilsudski and Mannerheim were both born in 1867. But Pilsudski died in 1935, while Mannerheim lived to 1951. Mannerheim defied Hitler yemach shmo, helped to protect Jews, and kept Finland as a free country as the Cold War began. Pilsudski was a dictator but I wonder whether had he lived he could have done anything to save Poland from the Nazis and Communists and Poland's Jews from extermination.
they were complicit, Poland. so was Netherlands and Switzerland. neutral my foot. they all wanted the Jews dead
Poland has been sued for precisely that in federal court in the US. See, Garb v. Republic of Poland, 440 F.3d 579 (2d Cir. 2006). The case was dismissed because Poland, as a state, is generally immune from suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. So I doubt that's Poland's concern.
Read this: http://polishpress.wordpress.com/2007/06/02/on-what-poles-and-jews-dont-like-to-remember/
Thank you for the link. A very thoughtful piece, and I tend to agree with the author’s observation that my loathing of things Polish was born by a love rejected. But explaining a feeling does not make it go away. I suspect there are very few areas in life in which I permit myself a purely emotional, utterly illogical approach, and my relationship with the Holocaust is one of them. I want nothing to do with Poland. I used to think that having the Soviet boot on their neck served as their atonement for their sins against my family. Now that’s also gone. I a world bereft of a sense of right and wrong, I allow myself this one absolute notion: They supported the hand that held the lever that released the gas that killed my family. May God punish all of them.
"Jewish publicists don’t talk with that passion about any other nation but Poland. Not about Germans, not about Russians, not about Ukrainians. "
Huh? I hear MUCH more anger towards Germany among my fellow Jews. Two shoah survivors in my shul lived in Poland as children and report that Poland was a great place to be a Jew until the death of Pilsudski. And I remember Ed Koch's comment about Ukrainians.
Sweden saved thousands of Jews but did a lot of business with the Nazis.
Ireland only saved a few dozen Jews but its "neutrality" wasn't very neutral — De Valera clandestinely helped the allies.