Use of ‘Polish concentration camps’ in decline, says media watchdog

The Polish Media Issues Group (PMI), a private initiative based in Cardiff founded in 2005, states that “world media outlets are slowly beginning to understand that this inaccurate wording vilifies Poland.”

According to PMI, there were 151 serious incidents in 2011, compared to 171 in 2009.

The conclusions of the research will be welcomed by President of the US Kosciuszko Foundation Alex Storozynski, who has led a campaign, backed by Poland’s Foreign Ministry, against the term being used in American and other media

PMI monitors media outlets in 30 countries, including the US, the UK, Israel and Russia.

Between 2006 and 2011, PMI reported 283 instances of the press using the term “Polish concentration camps”, 138 regarding “Polish death camps”, 105 concerning “Polish Auschwitz” and 12 in relation of the label “Polish ghetto.”

In January, Associated Press followed other publishers in the US when it changed its style sheet with instructions to journalists not to use the phrase “Polish concentration camps” for stories about German Nazis camps in WW II occupied Poland.

Although some editors argued that the use of the term “Polish camps” were geographical, Polish campaigners have stressed that the Holocaust was carried out by Adolf Hitler's regime in Nazi-occupied Poland, and that Polish citizens of all backgrounds perished in the death camps.

PMI also challenges misrepresentations of the 1940 Katyn massacre of over 22,500 Polish prisoners of war by Stalin's secret services, and not by Germans, as some reports on the mass murders still claim. (pg/nh)