WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland has appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to refrain from using World War II and Holocaust victims for current political goals and pointed to wartime documents in which the Polish government called on the Allies to save Jews.
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Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek made the appeal Tuesday before a conference in Israel this week to mark 75 years since Soviet troops liberated the German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Putin, who will be one of the key speakers, recently alleged that Poland bears some blame for the war and accused Poland’s government of the time of anti-Semitism. Poland’s president decided to boycott the conference, saying he wasn’t offered a chance to speak.
Szynkowski vel Sek said that if distortions and untrue allegations are repeated at the conference, Poland will point to historic documents and facts to counter them.
He named efforts by Poland’s resistance and the government-in-exile in London to gather and share with world leaders the facts about the mass extermination of Jews by occupying Nazi Germany.
One such document is Poland’s report on the extermination of Jews that various government leaders received in 1942, when Auschwitz-Birkenau was operating.
From 1940-45, around 1.1 million people, mostly Jews from across Europe, were killed at the camp.
The war began in 1939 with Nazi Germany’s military invasion of Poland, followed two weeks later by the Soviet invasion.
the crematory worked 24 hrs and Germany came away easy with all the wiedergutmachung
The Poles cannot diminish the fact that four major Nazi death camps were all operated in Poland, namely Auschwitz, Madjanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. The Poles did very little, if anything to help their fellow Jewish citizens. In many cases, Poles actively collaborated with the Nazis, and assisting them in hunting down, and identifying Jews. If those Poles didn’t turn the Jews over to the Nazis, they killed them on their own. Even after World War Two ended, surviving Jews who came back to Poland, were met with hostility by the local Poles, who had taken over their homes and property. In 1946, a pogrom took place in Kielce, Poland, and over 140 Jews were slaughtered by the local Poles. It took the government of Poland, over 70 years to even acknowledge that atrocity even took place. Therefore, I have no sympathy for the hurt feelings of the Poles, pertaining to Putin’s criticism. As far as them boycotting the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, being held in Jerusalem this week, let them stay home; who needs them! Momzarim!