Poland will summon the United States’ ambassador in Warsaw over an article written by a top U.S. intelligence official on Poland’s alleged responsibility for the Holocaust during World War Two, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
The article by FBI director James Comey, published in the Washington Post last week, prompted an outcry in Poland and drew condemnation in the media and from politicians.
A foreign ministry spokesman said on his Twitter account that the U.S. ambassador would be summoned to the ministry over the article, and that Poland would demand an apology.
Comey’s article in the Washington Post earlier this week 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.”
Poland says the passage wrongly implied it was complicit in the Nazi genocide of European Jews.
Poland’s ambassador to the U.S. said in a statement the remarks were “unacceptable”, adding that he had sent a letter to Comey “protesting the falsification of history, especially … accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of.”
Poland is one of the United States’ closest European allies, and bilateral relations have been strengthened by the conflict in Ukraine and related tensions with Russia. Polish politicians have repeatedly called for an increased U.S. military presence in the region.
The US ambassador to Warsaw apologized Sunday after being summoned by the foreign ministry over comments by the head of the FBI that Poland shared responsibility for the Holocaust with Germany.
Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski said the comments in an opinion piece by FBI director James Comey were an “insult” to Poland.
“In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil,” Comey wrote in the April 16 Washington Post article.
After meeting with Poland’s deputy foreign affairs minister, US ambassador Stephen Mull told reporters the Nazis bore sole responsibility for the Holocaust, which left six million European Jews dead in World War II.
“I made clear that the opinion that Poland is in any way responsible for the Holocaust is not the position of the United States,” Mull said in Polish. “Nazi Germany alone bears responsibility.”
“I now have a lot of work before me to make things right in this situation,” he added.
Foreign ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski wrote on Twitter Sunday that Mull would “receive a note of protest and a summons for an apology” over Comey’s comments.
Komorowski told public television that the FBI head’s comments showed a “lack of historical knowledge” and “this requires a reaction from the Polish state.”
They were an “insult to thousands of Poles who helped Jews.”