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We, the Polish community of Aberdeen have been horrified to read the article titled “Girls tell of the life-changing visit to Auschwitz camp” by Ed Earl which appeared in “Evening Express” on Monday 28th January 2013. The author referring to the Auschwitz death camp used extremely derogatory and unacceptable term “Polish concentration camp” which shifts the responsibility for the construction and operation of the camps from the German to the Polish people. Geographical reference is a poor explanation and this extremely insulting term implies that the Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in German-occupied Poland (according to the official UNESCO terminology) was allegedly Polish.

 

Readers without a thorough historical knowledge of World War II might thus conclude that the concentration camp was run by the Poles. I would appreciate your prompt response to whether or not this was the message you meant to communicate to the readers of your newspaper?

Many of us, members of Polish community in North East Scotland had family members murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Our grandmothers and grandfathers still remember the horror of living in Nazi-occupied country. Suggesting – even inadvertently – that Polish people are responsible for creating this hell on Earth which Auschwitz was is totally unacceptable and extremely harmful.

 

We expect a formal apology from the author published in “Evening Express” and an assurance that this term will never ever appear in your newspaper again.