"Polish death camp" controversy

This article is about the controversy over the use of the term. For the camps in question, see German camps in occupied Poland during World War II.

All of the Nazi extermination camps operated on the territory that is now Poland, although Nazi concentration camps were built in Germany and other countries.

The terms "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp" have been controversial as applied to the concentration camps and extermination camps established by Nazi Germany in German-occupied Poland. The terms have been criticized as misnomers.[1][2][3] The terms have occasionally been used by politicians and news media in reference to the camps' geographic location in German-occupied Poland. However, Polish officials and organizations have objected to the terms as misleading, since they can be misconstrued as meaning "death camps set up by Poles" or "run by Poland".[4] Some Polish politicians have portrayed inadvertent uses of the expression by foreigners as a deliberate disinformation campaign.[5]

While use of the terms was widely considered objectionable by Poles, an Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance in 2018 generated outrage, both within and outside Poland. The law criminalized public statements ascribing, to the Polish nation, collective responsibility in Holocaust-related crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, or war crimes, or which "grossly reduce the responsibility of the actual perpetrators".[6] It was generally understood that the law criminalized use of the expressions "Polish death camp" and "Polish concentration camp".[7][8][9]

The amendment also prohibited use of the expression "Polish concentration camp" in relation to camps operated by the Polish government after the war on sites of former Nazi camps.[10] In a court case in January 2018, Newsweek.pl was sentenced for referring to the Zgoda concentration camp, operated by Polish authorities after World War II, as a "Polish concentration camp".[11][12]

In 2019, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland ruled that the fragments of the amendment relating to the terms "Ukrainian nationalists" and "Eastern Lesser Poland" were void and non-binding.[13]

  1. ^ Kassow, Samuel (14 February 2018). "Poland Reimagines the Holocaust". Jewish Ledger. Retrieved 5 November 2020. And it's a convenient and expedient issue because everybody can agree that the term "Polish death camps" is a misnomer; that it's incorrect.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Zubrzycki2012 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference JTA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Gebert, Konstanty (2014). "Conflicting memories: Polish and Jewish perceptions of the Shoah" (PDF). In Fracapane, Karel; Haß, Matthias (eds.). Holocaust Education in a Global Context. Paris: UNESCO. p. 33. ISBN 978-92-3-100042-3.
  5. ^ Belavusau, Uladzislau (2018). "The Rise of Memory Laws in Poland: An Adequate Tool to Counter Historical Disinformation?". Security and Human Rights. 29 (1–4): 36–54. doi:10.1163/18750230-02901011. ISSN 1874-7337. The Polish government continues to fan a metaphorical fire each time the foreign media or a politician – like President Barack Obama in 2012 – inadvertently refers to 'Polish concentration camps'. This misnomer has been heralded by politicians as a purposeful disinformation exercise and a pretext for new legislation which, as is clear from its formulation, extends beyond the prohibition of 'Polish death camps'.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference ustawa26stycznia2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference wapo20180127 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference reuters28Jan2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference SmithsonianJan2018 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Hackmann, Jörg (2018). "Defending the "Good Name" of the Polish Nation: Politics of History as a Battlefield in Poland, 2015–18". Journal of Genocide Research. 20 (4): 587–606. doi:10.1080/14623528.2018.1528742. S2CID 81922100. There is, however, a second layer in this debate, as the incrimination of "Polish camps" can also be referred to halt the debate on Polish post-war camps, which have been discussed already since the 1990s for instance regarding detention and labour camps in Potulice or Łambinowice. Recently, the journalist Marek Łuszczyna has called them "Polish concentration camps" with the intention to challenge the right-wing discourse. His argument is based on the fact that these camps used the infrastructure of earlier German camps.
  11. ^ Gliszczyńska, Aleksandra; Jabłoński, Michał (12 October 2019). "Is One Offended Pole Enough to Take Critics of Official Historical Narratives to Court?". Verfassungsblog. Retrieved 19 October 2020. A highly problematic trend has emerged just recently, creating a precedent in the Polish legal doctrine. In January 2017, the Polish edition of Newsweek magazine published an article by Paulina Szewczyk entitled "After the Liberation of Nazi Camps, Did the Poles Open Them Again? 'The Little Crime' by Marek Łuszczyna". The author of this article stated that after 1945 Poles reopened the Świętochłowice-Zgoda camp, a branch of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. A lawsuit against Newsweek's editor-in-chief was brought by Maciej Świrski, the president of the Polish League Against Defamation (RDI), based on the press law provisions. In January 2018, the court decided in his favour, ordering the editor-in-chief to publish a corrigendum admitting that the assertion of the existence of "Polish concentration camps" created by Poles is false. This initial ruling was subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeal and eventually the Supreme Court, the latter finding Newsweek's last resort appeal (cassation) to be unfounded.
  12. ^ "Wyrok dla "Newsweeka" za "polskie obozy koncentracyjne". Znając badania IPN, trudno się z nim zgodzić". wyborcza.pl. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
  13. ^ "Ekspert: orzeczenie Trybunału Konstytucyjnego ws. nowelizacji ustawy o IPN może otworzyć drogę do dyskusji" (in Polish). Polskie Radio 24. 17 January 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.