Poland Demands Apology Over F.B.I. Director’s Holocaust Remarks

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/world/europe/poland-angry-james-comey-fbi-director-holocaust.html

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WARSAW — Polish political leaders have been taking turns angrily denouncing James B. Comey, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, over comments he made last week that suggested to them that he blamed Poles for being Nazi accomplices during the Holocaust.

“To those who don’t know the historical truth, I would like to say today, Poland was not an aggressor but a victim during the Second World War,” Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said during a news briefing. “We would expect officials discussing these matters to know this.”

The American ambassador to Poland was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw on Sunday to answer for Mr. Comey’s comments, and on Monday, Poland’s foreign minister demanded an official apology from Washington.

Mr. Comey’s remarks came in a generally well-received speech on Wednesday at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington; portions of the speech were later published in The Washington Post.

In the passage that prompted the angry reaction in Poland, he said: “In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That’s what people do. And that should truly frighten us.”

The issue is a particularly delicate one in Poland, which has chafed under what it feels is a stubborn and widespread misconception that it was somehow complicit in the Holocaust because several of the Nazi death camps were built on what is now Polish soil. A similar uproar followed a 2012 reference by President Obama to a “Polish death camp.”

Whenever someone stumbles into this territory, Polish officials stress that Poland was conquered by Germany, which imposed its own rule on the region; there was never a collaborationist government like Vichy France or the Quisling regime in Norway. And while there were certainly episodes in which Poles were responsible for the deaths of Jews, there was no widespread complicity with the Nazi policy of extermination.

The Polish president, Bronislaw Komorowski, said in a television interview on Sunday that Mr. Comey’s comments were the result of his “ignorance, lack of historical knowledge and possibly large personal aversion” toward Poles.

An F.B.I. spokesman said the agency would have no comment.

The American ambassador, Stephen Mull, emerged from his meeting at the Foreign Ministry on Sunday saying that blaming anyone besides Nazi Germany for the Holocaust was not only mistaken but “harmful and offensive,” and did not reflect the views of the administration.

Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, on Monday praised the “brave patriots” in Poland, Hungary and other countries who helped protect their countrymen from occupying Nazi forces, singling out Poles who, she said, bore the brunt of the “barbarism” of Nazi rule.

Ms. Harf said, “Director Comey certainly did not intend to suggest otherwise, or to suggest that Poland was somehow responsible for the Holocaust.”

The ambassador said his discussion with Polish officials was cordial. “The talk took place in a friendly atmosphere,” he said. “But we have to remember that even in the best friendships, misunderstandings occur.”

Still, the contretemps was at the top of news reports in Poland on Monday, and some Polish leaders appeared unmollified. Grzegorz Schetyna, Poland’s minister of foreign affairs, told reporters in Luxembourg on Monday that the matter remained one of grave concern to his country.

“In this situation, we need to act as quickly as possible,” Mr. Schetyna said. “We wait for the matter to be resolved by Washington, and to get an adequate apology.”