When it comes to U.S. history, the Holocaust seems more of a subset of the bigger picture that was World War II. At the end of the war American soldiers liberated some of the Nazi concentration camps. But, in the history of the world, it is one of the ugliest stains on humanity. I had the privilege of touring the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. during the year it opened and I was moved to tears.
How hopeless the Jewish people must have felt. Even after Polish citizen Jan Karski was able to sneak through enemy lines to get the Holocaust message to Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill and plead with them to intervene, no help came until the very end of the war. That was too late for millions of people.
I don”t know if most Poles, Jewish and Christian, have forgiven the rest of the world for its failure to attempt to act more swiftly when first informed about the slaughter of millions of innocent people. I do know that many Poles and American citizens of Polish descent are still angry by the extreme inaccuracy of countless authors and reporters who, to this day, refer to the concentration camps built by Nazi Germans in what had been Poland as “Polish concentration camps.”
Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote this about Auschwitz in April 2006, “As an agency which prioritizes remembrance of the Holocaust, we share Poland ”s concerns over the frequent description of the camp as a ?Polish” camp. Such a description implies that the camp was built in the name of the Polish people. As you know, this is manifestly not the truth. Auschwitz stands as a monument to the barbarity of Nazi Germany. We therefore respectfully request that the camp be officially referred to as the Former Nazi German Extermination Camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.”
Many news organizations either haven”t gotten the message or else, with knowledge of the plea, choose to ignore the request. In May, the Wall Street Journal ran a story that used the term “Polish concentration camp.” In June the Los Angeles Times ran a story in which the writer used the phrase “Nazi Poland.” And, in October the New York Times ran an obituary of Dr. George Mathe which stated that he had been sent to “a Polish concentration camp in a cattle car.”
Recently, The Kosciuszko Foundation has been calling attention to the continued insults of Poland , whether out of “ignorance, lazy editing or malicious libel.” The foundation has amassed more than 30,000 signatures from people who are in support of a petition demanding that news outlets and authors immediately stop using the erroneous wording.
Alex Storozynski, Executive Director of The Kosciuszko Foundation, wrote this in a letter from the foundation, “News outlets that use these defamatory phrases are teaching a new generation of impressionable newspaper readers that the Holocaust was carried out by Poles rather than Nazi Germany.
“Poland did not exist from September 1939 until 1945. Maps from this time period show that the camps were built in ?The Greater German Reich,” part of Hitler”s Germany that had expanded east. The camps were established by Germans, run by Germans and guarded by Germans. The Nazis gave them German names like ? Auschwitz ” and hung German words over the entrance, ?Arbeit macht frei” (work will make you free).”
I”m not Polish or of Polish descent, yet it makes me angry. I can only imagine how the Poles feel. Poland resisted longer than any other country that Hitler overtook in his attempt at world domination. Such insensitivity and blatant fallaciousness still taking place 65 years after the end of the war by professional journalists and authors who should know enough about history to accurately define something as heinous as an extermination camp for human beings is inexcusable.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
