Poland Summons U.S. Ambassador Over FBI Head’s Holocaust Remarks

Poland has summoned 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 II, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

The article by FBI director James Comey, published in the Washington Post earlier this week, prompted an outcry in Poland and drew condemnation in the media and from politicians.

A foreign ministry spokesman said that the U.S. ambassador would be summoned to the ministry over the article, and that Poland would demand an apology.

Comey said in the article: “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 United States 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.

This article appeared in print on page 2 of the April 20th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.