Associated Press
President Obama awards the Medal of Freedom to former Polish Foreign Minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld, accepting for Jan Karski.
It appears that one of the stories of the day in Washington has to do with President Obama misspeaking during yesterday's Medal of Freedom ceremony, sparking complaints from officials in Poland.
The president was posthumously awarding the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to Jan Karski, born Jan Kozielewski, a "Polish courier who was one of the first to alert President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Allied leaders to the killing of Jews in German-occupied Poland." Obama noted he'd been smuggled into "the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself."
That's not what Polish officials wanted to hear -- the correct phrase would have been "a death camp in Poland," not "a Polish death camp." The White House expressed "regret" for the "misstatement," though some in Poland, including the Prime Minister, still want a "stronger, more pointed" response.
Obama's detractors seem to be quite worked up about about this -- a slow news day for the political world, I guess? -- and the dividing lines already seem pretty clear. Those more sympathetic to the president see this as a harmless verbal mistake -- the death camps really were in Poland, so the line was really about geography -- while Obama's critics are far less forgiving.
But what seems most interesting to me is an observation from Steve M., who discovered just how common an error this is, including references to "Polish death camps" from journalists at CNN, ABC, CBS, and the New York Times.
Also guilty of this have been Ha'aretz, USA Today, the L.A. Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, the Associated Press, The Buffalo News, Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper and broadcaster CTV, The Toronto Star, and the British comedian Stephen Fry. And that's just a list of people and organizations that have been reproached for it.
Oh, one more: Fox News.
Yes, it would have been better if the administration had avoided the gaffe, but it's quite a common gaffe.
Let those of us who have not made similar slip-ups cast the first stone.
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Too many people are unfamiliar with the Nazi extermination of Polish Christians during WWII. Nearly two million of them were killed by the Nazis in Poland, a large number of which died in the Nazi extermination camps, alongside the Jews and other "undesirables" targeted by the German Nazis. A fifth of the population of Poland died during WWII, but all anyone can seem to remember is the Jewish Holocaust. There was a Polish Holocaust, too. Do some research to confirm this.
In total, six million Polish citizens died in WWII.
QUOTE
On August 22, 1939, a few days before the official start of World War II, Hitler authorized his commanders, with these infamous words, to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space [lebensraum] we need".
..."All Poles will disappear from the world.... It is essential that the great German people should consider it as its major task to destroy all Poles." - Heinrich Himmler echoing Hitler's decree
END QUOTE
http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/poland.htm
POLISH VICTIMS
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005473
What the Polish government really doesn't want people to know is the number of Poles who actively collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of Jews. Historical fact: pre-war Poland was more anti-Semitic than pre-war Germany.
And yes, many Poles were among the most heroic warriors in the fight against Nazism, whether as the pilots who provided the crucial margin of victory in the Battle of Britain, the many soldiers who made "defeated" Poland the fourth-largest Allied army in the war, or those who remained behind in the Home Army that rose in Warsaw in August 1944.
But the sad historical truth is the Nazis could never have done what they did at Auschwitz without the active collaboration of more than a few high-ranking Polish traitors.
The few German soldiers stationed in Poland would not have been able to carry out the mass murder of Jews without collaboration of the Polish people. Here is but one documented example: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/neighbors-jan-t-gross/1100734223?ean=9780142002407
The Nazis may have built the death camps which were geographically located in Poland but they can aptly be described as Polish death camps.
Withay, so those poor 3 to 5 German soldiers, who wandered to Poland by accident just could not do it themselves, huh?
"On September 1st., 1939, 1.8 million German troops invaded Poland on three fronts; East Prussia in the north, Germany in the west and Slovakia in the south."
Not to mention a rather big German minority living in Poland that was actively supporting Germans in their quest.
"According to the 1931 census there were around 740 000 Germans living in Poland (2,3% of the whole population).
After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 many members of the German minority (around 25%[6]) joined the ethnic German paramilitary organisation Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz.
When the German occupation of Poland begun, Selbstschutz took active part in Nazi crimes against ethnic Poles. Due to their prewar interactions with the Polish majority, they were able to prepare lists of Polish intellectuals and civil servants who were selected for extermination."
Your ignorance would be excusable 25 years ago, but in the age of Wikipedia it is criminal.
The Nazis were responsible for the camps. Perhaps some sympathizers or opportunists came along. The history is not wrong, but the terminology was technically juxtaposed or somehow seen as offensive by some people. It was a pretty minor gaffe of sentence structure.
I know it was not the Poles who thought up the final solution, doesn't everyone?
By the dry numbers alone those "some sympathizers" were at least 185,000 Polish citizens of German heritage. And those were enthusiastic Nazi supporters who signed up.
My grandfather was Austrian-Polish (with an Austrian-American-Polish dad), he natively spoke both German and Polish and he was considered Polish by Polish (and Polish Jewish) people and German/Austrian by German people.
He (just like everybody) knew everybody in his native town of 10,000 people of southern Poland (former Austro-Hungarian territory) and it took just one Nazi supported out of 500 Austrian-Poles or German-Poles (with the rest being loyal to Poland and their neighbours) to single out every one Jew, teacher, professor, police officer and government official in town to the invaders.
And the history teaches us there were more than 1 of those in town. Well, at least playing dumb in front of Gestapo did not equal instant death to my grandpa (like it did for "pure" Polish Poles), but he did get deported for not being cooperative.
I very much appreciate your personal story and always open to more information. But I did say Nazis, not Germans or Poles. Perhaps I did under represent the numbers. It seemed that Hitler led German soldiers into Poland and other countries, inviting some with his anti Jewish garbage. Yes, I can see that happening, being faced with execution one might need to be actors.
I was very close to a friend who survived the camps, her mother and grandmother had those tattoed numbers on their arms. Of course they never spoke of it.
There were many people lulled into following Hitler's ethnic purity rampage. Mussolini got patriotic Italian Jews to support him with his black shirts and fascism. They served him, supported him and then when it came time to cooperate with Hitler, Mussolini had Italian Jews deported, even those that worked to prop up Mussolini as a patriotic duty. Some were shot.
I recant my words that may have implied only a few people in Poland were complicit. I do think it's time to take in the history lessons and say Obama gave a medal of freedom to a man who informed Roosevelt of the terrible events.
Nonsense. Do you know of a high level Polish collaborator? Do not invent "facts".
I don't care what anyone says Paul S. Campbell, I laughed at your post in the other thread about Mitt (or Bush) taking the opportunity to crack some Polish jokes. Levity can be found in the most unlikely of places!
The Poles are so sensitive about this that they insist on calling Auschwitz by its Polish name, Ozwiecim. Yet, anyone who has seen Lanzmann's Shoah knows that many Poles were anti-semites, even though, yes, they too were victims.
Advice I can guaran-damn-tee won't be followed.
The British maintained a prison in Kenya called Kamiti. This was the place of incarceration for political prisoners including some of Obama's relatives. Would Obama be offended if we referred to Kamiti as a Kenyan Prison?
Care to explain why you think Obama would have any stake in what you called it?
While POTUS did misspeak, the camps were a Nazi thing on Polish soil. Six people with my surname died there at the hands of the Nazis. Many Poles were murdered in these camps also.
Defense: I can't blame President Obama for assuming everyone knew that Nazi Germany was responsible for those camps, not Poles or other countries invaded by Hitler. I can see the sensitivity, but the medal and regrets for wording should soothe the hurt feelings. The medal is evidence of honoring the recipients. Poland has my sympathy for what happened to them before I was born. I am happy someone thought to give a medal of Freedom.
Yes, I understand what it means when a camp is put in a country that was not wanted by its citizens. I also know this subject is terribly sensitive.
Offense: I will go just a little "off track" to mention the Republican power play obstruction on debt ceiling affected the economy last year when they caused our bond rating to be dropped in response to their threats? Take a look at the chart about a third of the way down (from financial sources). They wrote about what happened: https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/5-things-about-munis
Disclaimer: This site is informational as well as selling products. I intend it to be informational, not selling.
Obviously President Obama misspoke so what is the big deal- the question I have is why did Rachel et al think it necessary to rush to the President's defense-
In terms of the debt rating- as I recall only one agency lowered the us debt rate- which as a practical matter had no effect on anything- typcially if a debt rating is lowered- the interest rates for the debt issued by such entity or nation goes up- in this case just the opposite- long term treasury rates have trended down-
Seems that the rw talkers are making it a big deal.
I wanted to bring up the fact that Republicans in Congress wish to protect their precious donors' tax money, they are willing to cause this type of economic fallout. Saying it's just one agency that lowered the rating means diddly squat. Look at the reaction to what the Republicans did in order to protect their tax cut benefactors-the rich!
Do you open links and read them?
yes as to links- thanks- I understand that republicans will no cooperate with the Obama agenda- conversely as I recall democrats do no cooperate with a republican president- both parties work to make the other look bad- which is why we have the problems we do- each need to leave the ego and ideology at the door and fix the debt and spending problem- my point on the debt downgrade is that it had no economic effect- nor would any other downgrade- given the problems in the EU and others, US will remain the safe haven for cash which means low interest rates
I'm saying the Republican policies have taken us to this economy, the Republican Leadership says tax cuts for debt ceiling, which led to credit rating lowering. Playing chicken with the economy, job and wage cuts are the last thing we need. We need Congress people that take their jobs seriously, tax cuts pledges and pandering to ideology that would ruin the credit of our nation. We cannot put more people out of work and looking for food by cutting food stamps and Medicare.
I'm saying I do not want Republicans running this country because they are willing to pander to T.P. folks that and take great risks to do damage to bond ratings.
https://www.fidelity.com/viewpoints/5-things-about-munis
Steve, you do realize that the GOP care nothing for: history, reality, the truth, deficits, et.al - but the one thing they do "care about" - trying to make POTUS look bad; as though they can really do that!
Zora, No one needs to make the POTUS look bad, he does a good enough job of that by himself.
By comparison, we all should have been pretty worked up that Mexico did nothing to help clean up BP's Deepwater Horizon mess even though it was clearly happening in its own Gulf of Mexico. It's their mess not by virtue of geography but by virtue of lexicography.
Yes, as Steve M points out, the incorrect usage is extremely common. So common, in fact, that there are whole groups in Poland devoted to combating it. It's a convenient "shortcut" (it's simpler to say "Polish death camps" than "Nazi extermination camps in Poland") but it reflects a certain sloppiness of thought and language - it's inaccurate as well as unjust. Poles already have enough to answer for with their own antisemitism and silence in the face of the atrocity; they don't need to be saddled with the sins of others (Nazis) as well. There were many Poles who hid Jews, risking their own death.
And, once inside the camp, it really made no difference whether you were a Pole, a Jew or a Gypsy. A (Jewish) friend of my Mother's, who survived several months in Majdanek and Oswiecim before being shipped to Buchenwald (and liberated from there), said that their support group (prop up the weak ones at the morning count off; steal potato peelings if you were on kitchen duty, etc) consisted mostly of Jewish women but several Polish ones as well.
With regard to what Poland doesn't like to talk about (as several commenters mention above)... Does France like to talk about the silence that surrounded the rounding of its Jews for shipment to Poland and Germany? Does US like to talk about its stance, when it refused to offer asylum to Jews?
We are speaking English right? The phrase "Polish death camps" is simply the standard English phrase meaning death camps located in Poland. See Kansas City massacre or Joplin tornado for similar English phrasing. What a non-event.
How often do you hear about "a Czech concentration camp" (Terezin)?
I watched Andrea Mitchell tsk tsk about this very issue earlier today, saying that this is obviously a big deal, so it is not just detractors who are making this a big deal.
Thankfully, I missed Chuck Todd's take. I think Todd goes out of his way to bitch about Obama. He's in for the horse race all the way.
Yeah, tell me that MSNBC is such a liberal network.
Perhaps the president was intending to improve our relationship with British comedian Stephen Fry.
Should Poland be so outraged? All you have to do is go to Wickipedia to confirm that, between 1944 and 1946, Poland saw too it that a lot of the Jews who were thinking of repatriating were greeted with violence and often death, especially when people who had seized houses and property feared that the survivors of the Holocaust might want their possessions returned to them.
The killings at Kielce in 1946 were outrageous but that does not make the Poles responsible for the killing of millions of Poles. Poor logic can be very harmful.
At least he didn't call them concentration camps. Completely different thing with a different purpose. That's my pet peeve about this subject: people who don't know that the Nazis operated four different types of prison camps (concentration camps, POW camps, slave-labor camps and extermination camps) and lump them all under the term 'concentration camp'. I've been accused of being a Holocaust denier by people too ignorant to know what they're talking about, which makes it the grandmother of pet peeves.
Way overplayed I think..
There is a real danger in speculating on a lack of fact and making damning inferences. There were no high level Polish collaborators.
This voter may not vote again for Obama becuase of his insensitivity in handing his gaffe. Maddow's commentary magnifies this insenitivity.
Come on, it is a common mistake and, though we should point out that the phrase "Polish death camp" is misleading and unfair to many of us, I don't think it is so important that the whole country should be worked up about it. After all it's not that it was a purposeful statement - just an error on the writer's part who probably thought about it in geographical terms.
And instead of correcting it, accepting the fact that it was a mistake and moving on, our politicians, government and media made a huge affair out of it. I mean, I heard about it TODAY! After four days they still talk about it on the radio. What's the point?
Overblowing it the way politicians and media from my country do is idiotic. Treating it like a knife in the back is idiotic. Of course it should be corrected, but keep it in proportion instead of screaming "rape!" when someone touches you on the shoulder.
And, BTW, Stephen Fry did make a bigger error actually suggesting that these were Polish camps. He eventually apologized, but he wrote on his blog that the outrage and attacks on him made him defensive and not apologetic (and was not proud of that, but I understand him - it's in our nature to defend ourselves when we're being personally attacked). His was serious mistake, but I still think it is idiotic to react like that to such statements. Reaction - yes, outrage- not.
Especially that most of these angry people at the same time completely disrespect a WWII veteran who usually has a different, more balanced opinion. Why is it that people who have lived through that hell are more understanding than idiots who weren't even born at that time but talk about it all the time?