Poles aim to educate Americans about Nazi death camps

The museum, which is to be housed in a bus, also aims to highlight the efforts of Poles who helped rescue Jews from the Holocaust.

The Polish group behind the idea last year travelled to Germany, Belgium and Britain with a mobile billboard reading “Death Camps Were Nazi German.”

Kamil Rybikowski, one of the organisers of the bus-cum-museum project, said the United States was "a very important, opinion-forming country” but one that has seen “distortions” about history, “often resulting from a certain ignorance about World War II.”

This is specially visible in academic environments, he said, adding: “That’s why we would like to travel around academic centres.”

Poland has long fought the use of phrases such as “Polish death camps,” which have often appeared in foreign media in relation to Nazi German-run extermination camps on occupied Polish territory during World War II.

Despite pressure from the United States and Israel, Polish President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday signed into force a contested law which could impose a jail term on anyone who accuses Poland of being complicit in Nazi German crimes.

Public broadcaster Polish Radio has launched a special website, GermanDeathCamps.info, aimed at debunking misconceptions about Poland’s role in the Holocaust.

(pk/gs)

Source: IAR